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MJi V EUIE^ 



A BACHELOR 



A Book of the Heakt 



I3ji Jk. JlTavDcl, 

Author of Fkesu Gleaninqs. 






It is worth the labor— saith Plotinus — to consider well of Love, 

whether it be a God, or a divell, or passion of the miado, or partly 
God, partly divell, partly passion. — Bukton's Anatomy. 



sixteenth edition. 
New York: 

€ljark0 Srribmr. 

1852. 



/v3 z^o ^ 



Entered according to Act ot Congress, in the year 1850, by 

Donald G Mctciiell, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District '""ourt of tlie United States for the 

Southern District of New York. 



0. 



N K \y Y (1 n K 

S T E K E O T Y 1' E 1) U T 

W . 13 E N E D I C; 

201 WILLIAM BT. 



ilTr0. €. €, Wixon, 

of 

jl^artforir, (Eonnccttcut, 

®lji0 book 

10 nspcctfullii insmbeir; 

bg Ijer frienlr, 

®lje ^lutljor. 



PREFACE. 



THIS book is neither more, nor less than it pretends 
to be ; it is a collection of those floating Reveries 
which have, from time to time, drifted across my 
brain. I never yet met with a bachelor who had 
not his share of just such floating visions ; and the 
only difference between us hes in the fact, that I have 
tossed them from me in the shape of a Book. 

If they had been worked over with more unity of 
design, I dare say I might have made a respectable 
novel ; as it is, I have chosen the honester way of setting 
them down as they came seething from my thought, 
with all their crudities and contrasts, uncovered. 



vi Preface. 

As for the truth that is in them, the world may 
beheve what it hkes ; for having written to humor 
t]ie world, it would be hard, if I should curtail any 
of its privileges of judgment. I should think there 
was as much truth in them, as in most Reveries. 

The first story of the book has already had some 
pubhcity ; and the criticisms upon it have amused, 
and pleased me. One honest journalist avows that 
it could never have been written by a bachelor. I 
thank him for thinking so well of me ; and heartily 
wish that his thought were as true, as it is kind. 

Yet I am inchned to think that bachelors are the 
only safe, and secure observers of all the phases of 
married life. The rest of the world have their hob- 
bies; and by law, as well as by immemorial custom, 
are reckoned unfair witnesses in everything relating 
to their matrimonial affairs. 

Perhaps I ought however to make an exception in 
favor of spinsters, who like us, ai*e independent spec- 
tators, and possess just that kind of indiflference to 
the marital state, which makes them intrepid in their 
observations, and very desirable for — authorities. 



Preface. vii 

As for tlie style of the book, I have nothing to say 
for it, except to refer to my title. These are not 
sermons, nor essays, nor criticisms; — they are only 
Reveries. And if the reader should stumble upon 
occasional magniloquence, or be worried with a little 
too much of sentiment, pray, let him remember, — 
that I am di-eaming. 

But while I say this, in the hope of nicking oflf the 
wiry edge of my reader's judgment, I shall yet stand 
up boldly for the general tone, and character of the 
book. If there is bad feeling in it, or insincerity, or 
shallow sentiment, or any foolish depth of affection 
betrayed, — ^I am responsible ; and the critics may 
expose it to their heart's content. 

I have moreover a kindly feeling for these Reveries, 
from their very private character ; they consist mainly 
of just such whimseys, and reflections, as a great 
many brother bachelors are apt to indulge in, but 
which they are too cautious, or too prudent to lay 
before the world. As I have in this matter, shown a 
frankness, and naivete which are unusual, I shall ask a 
corresponding frankness in my reader ; and I can 



m Preface. 

assui'e him safely that this is emirently one of those 
books which were ' never intended for piibhcation.' 

In the hope that this plain avowal may quicken the 
reader's charity, and screen me from cruel judgment, 

I remain, with sincere good wishes, 

Tk. Marvel. 

new york, nov, 1850, 



CONTENTS. 



FIRST REVERIE. 



Over a Wood Fire, 

I. S310KE, SIGNIFYING Doubt, • 

II. Blaze, signifying Cheer, . 

III. Ashes, signifying Desolation, 



15 
19 
29 
3G 



SECOND REVERIE. 



Br A City Grate, 

I. Sea-Coal, 

II. Anthracite. 



Gl 
SO 



C O N T fc .> £ * . 



THIRD REVERIE. 

Over his Cigar, 

I. Lighted with a Coal, 

II. Lighted with a Wisp op Paper, 

III Lighted with a Match, 



99 
103 
117 
132 



FOURTH REVERIE, 



Morning, Noon, and Evening, . . 


. 149 


L Morning— which is the Past, . 


. 157 


School Days, .... 


. 167 


The Ska, 


. 178 


Father-Land, 


. 186 


A Roman Girl, . . . , 


195 


The Appenines, . . . . 


. 205 


Enrica, 


. 214 


U. Noon — which is the Present, . 


. 223 


Early Friknds, • . , . 


. 226 


School Revisited, . . , . 


• 233 


College, 


. 239 


Bella's Pacquet, . . . . 


. 246 



Contents. xi 

III. Evening — which is the Future, , . 256 

Carry, 260 

The Letter, .... . . 269 

New Travel, 275 

Home, 28"^ 



ifirsl BcMcrie. 



0mokt, Jlanit aiii) 2,s\)C3. 



OVER A WOOD FIEE. 



I HAVE got a quiet farmliouse in the country, a 
very humble place to be sure, tenanted by a 
worthy enough man, of the old New-England stamp, 
where I sometimes go for a day or two in the winter, 
to look over the farm-accounts, and to see how the 
stock is thriving on the winter's keep. 

One side the door, as you enter from the porch, is a 
little parlor, scarce twelve feet by ten, with a cosy 
looking fire-place — a heavy oak floor — a couple of 
arm chairs and a brown table with carved hons' feet. 
Out of this room opens a little cabinet, only big 
enough for a broad bachelor bedstead, where I sleep 
upon feathei-s, and wake in the morning, with my eye 
upon a saucy colored, lithographic print of some fancy 
* Bessy." 



16 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

It happens to be the only house in the world, of 
which I am hona-fide owner ; and I take a vast deal 
of comfort in treating it just as I choose. I manage 
to break some article of furniture, almost every time 
I pay it a visit ; and if I cannot open the window 
readily of a morning, to breathe the fresh air, I knock 
out a pane or two of glass with my boot I lean 
against the walls in a very old arm-chair there is on 
the premises, and scarce ever fail to wony such a 
hole in the plastering, as would set me down for a 
round charge for damages in town, or make a prim 
housewife fret herself into a raging fever. I laugh 
out loud with myself, in my big arm-chair, when I 
think that I am neither afraid of one nor the other. 

As for the fire, I keep the little hearth so hot, as to 
warm half the cellar below, and the whole space be- 
tween the jams, roars for hours together, with white 
flame. To be sure the windows are not very tight, 
between broken panes, and bad joints, so that the 
fire, large as it is, is by no means an extravagant 
comfort. 

As night approaches, I have a huge pile of oak 
and hickory placed beside the hearth; I put out the 
tallow candle on the mantel, (using the family snuf- 
fei*s, with one leg broke,) — then, drawing my chair 
directly in front of the blazing wood, and setting one 
foot on each of the old u*on fire-dogs, (until they 



Over a Wood Fire. 17 

grow too warm,) I dispose myself for an evening of 
such sober, and thoughtful quietude, as I believe, on 
my soul, that veiy few of my fellow-men have the 
good fortune to enjoy. 

My tenant meantime, in the other room, I can 
hear now and then, — though there is a thick stone 
chimney, and broad entry between, — multiplying con- 
trivances with his wife, to put two babies to sleep. 
This occupies them, I should say, usually an hour; 
though my only measure of time, (for I never carry 
a watch into the country,) is the blaze of my fire. 
By ten, or thereabouts, my stock of wood is nearly 
exhausted ; I pile upon the hot coals what remains, 
and sit watching how it kindles, and blazes, and goes 
out, — even like our joys ! — and then, slip by the hght 
of the embei-s into my bed, where I luxuriate in such 
sound, and healthful slumber, as only such rattling 
window frames, and country air, can supply. 

But to return ; the other evening — it happened to 
be on my last visit to my farm-house — when I had 
exhausted all the ordinary rural topics of thought, 
had formed all sorts of conjectures as to the income 
of the year ; had planned a new wall around one lot, 
and the clearing up of another, now covered with 
patriarchal wood ; and wondered if the little ricketty 
house would not be after all a snug enough box, to 
live and to die in — I fell on a sudden into such an 



18 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

unprecedented line of tho ight, which took such deep 
hold of my sympathies — sometimes even starting 
tears — that I determined, the next day, to set as 
much of it as I could recal, on paper. 

Something — it may have been the home-looking 
blaze, (I am a bachelor of — say six and twenty,) or 
possibly a plaintive cry of the baby in my tenant's 
room, had suggested to me the thought of — Mai*- 
riage. 

I piled upon the heated fire-dogs, the last arm-full 
of my wood ; and now, said I, bracing myself cour- 
ageously between the arms of my chair, — I'll not 
flinch ; — I'll pursue the thought wherever it leads, 
though it lead me to the d — (I am apt to be hasty,) 
— at least — continued I, softening, — until my fire is 
out. 

The wood was gi'een, and at first showed no disposi- 
tion to blaze. It smoked furiously. Smoke, thought 
I, always goes before blaze ; and so does doubt go 
before decision : and my Reverie, from that very start- 
ing point, shpped into this shape : — 



S M K E S IGNIFTING DoUBT, 

A WIFE ?— thouglit I ;— yes, a wife ! 
And why ! 

And pray, my dear sir, why not — why ? Why not 
doubt ; why not hesitate ; why not tremble ? 

Does a man buy a ticket in a lottery — a poor man, 
whose whole earnings go in to secure the ticket, — 
without trembhng, hesitating, and doubting ? 

Can a man stake his bachelor respectabihty, his 
independence, and comfort, upon the die of absorbing, 
unchanging, relentless marriage, without trembling at 
the venture ? 

Shall a man who has been free to chase his fancies 
over the wide-world, without lett or hindrance, shut 



20 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

himself up to marriage-ship, within four walls called 
Home, that are to claim him, his time, his trouble, 
and his tears, thenceforward forever more, without 
doubts thick, and thick-coming as Smoke ? 

Shall he who has been hitherto a mere observer of 
other men's cares and business — moving oflf where 
they made him sick of heart, approaching whenever 
and wherever they made him gleeful — shall he now 
undertake administration of just such cares and busi- 
ness, without qualms ? Shall he, whose whole life has 
been but a nimble succession of escapes from trifling 
difficulties, now broach without doubtings — that Mat- 
rimony, where if difficulty beset him, there is no 
escape ? Shall this brain of mine, careless-working, 
never tired with idleness, feeding on long vagaries, 
and high, gigantic castles, dreaming out beatitudes 
hour by hour — turn itself at length to such dull task- 
work, as thinking out a livehhood for wife and chil- 
dren ? 

Where thenceforward will be those sunny dreams, 
in which I have warmed my fancies, and my heai-t, 
and hghted my eye with crystal ? This very mai'- 
riage, which a briUiant working imagination has in- 
vested time and again with brightness, and delight, 
can serve no longer as a mine for teeming fancy : all, 
alas, will be gone — reduced to the dull standard of 
the actual! No more room for intrepid forays of 



Smoke — Signifying Doubt. 21 

imagination — no more gorgeous realm-making — all 
will be over ! 

Why not, I thought, go on dreaming ? 

Can any wife be prettier than an after dinner 
foncy, idle and yet vivid, can paint for you ? Can 
any children make less noise, than the little rosy- 
cheeked ones, who have no existence, except in the 
omnium gatherum of your own brain ? Can any 
housewife be more unexceptionable than she who 
goes sweeping daintily the cobwebs that gather in 
your dreams? Can any domestic larder be better 
stocked, than the private larder of your head dozmg 
on a cushioned chair-back at Delmonico's ? Can any 
family purse be better filled than the exceeding plump 
one, you dream of, after reading such pleasant books 
as Munchausen, or Typee ? 

But if, after all, it must be — duty, or what-not, 
making provocation — what then ? And I clapped my 
feet hard against the fire-dogs, and leaned back, and 
turned my face to the ceiling, as much as to say ; — 
And whe* e on earth, then, shall a poor devil look for a 
wife ? 

Soraebody says, Lyttleton or Shaftesbury I think, 
that " marriages would be happier if they were all 
?u'ranged by the Lord Chancellor." Unfortunately, 
we have no Lord Chancellor to make this commuta- 
tion of our misery. 



22 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

Shall a man then scour the country on a mule's 
back, hke Honest Gil Bias of Santillane ; or shall he 
make apphcation to some such intervening providence 
as Madame St. Marc, who, as I see hy the Presse, 
manages these matters to one's hand, for some five per 
cent, on the fortunes of the parties ? 

I have trouted, when the brook was so low, and 
the sky so hot, that I might as well have thrown my 
fly upon the turnpike ; and I have hunted hare at 
noon, and wood-cock in snow-time — never despairing, 
scarce doubting; but for a poor hunter of his kind, 
without traps or snares, or any aid of police or consta- 
bulary, to traverse the world, where are swarming, 
on a moderate computation, some three hundred and 
odd millions of unmarried women, for a single capture 
— irremediable, unchangeable — and yet a capture which 
by strange metonymy, not laid down in the books, is 
very apt to turn captor into captive, and make game of 
hunter — all this, surely, surely may make a man shrug 
with doubt ! 

Then — again, — there are the plaguey wife's-rela- 
tions. Who knows how many third, fourth, or fifth 
cousins will appear at careless comj^lioentary intervals, 
long after you had settled into the placid belief that all 
congratulatory visits were at an end? How many 
twisted headed brothers will be putting in their advice, 
as a friend to Peggy ? 



Smoke — Signifying Doubt. 23 

How many maiden aunts -will come to spend a 
month or two with their " dear Peggy," and want to 
know eveiy tea-time, " if she isn't a dear love of a 
wife ?" Then, dear father-in-law will beg, (taking 
dear Peggy's hand in his,) to give a little wholesome 
counsel ; and will be very sure to advise just the con- 
traiy of what you had determined to undertake. And 
dear mamma-in-law must set her nose into Peggy's 
cupboard, and insist upon having the key to your own 
private locker in the wainscot. 

Then, perhaps, there is a little bevy of dirty-nosed 
nephews who come to spend the holydays, and eat up 
your East India sweetmeats ; and who are forever 
tramping over your head, or raising the old Harry 
below, while you are busy with your clients. Last, 
and woret, is some fidgety old uncle, forever too cold or 
too hot, who vexes you with his patronizing airs, and 
impudently kisses his httle Peggy ! 

That could be borne, however : for perhaps 

he has promised his fortune to Peggy. Peggy, then, 
wiU be rich : — (and the thought made me rub my 
shins, which were now getting comfortably warm upon 
the fire-dogs.) Then, she will be forever talking of her 
fortune ; and pleasantly reminding you on occasion of 
a favorite purchase, — how lucky that she had the 
means ; and dropping hints about economy ; and buy- 
ing very extravagant Paisleys. 



24 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

She will annoy you by looking over tlie stock-list 
at breakfast time ; and mention quite carelessly to 
your clients, that she is interested in such^ or such a 
speculation. 

She will be provokingly silent when you hint to a 
tradesman, that you have not the money by you, for 
his small bill ; — in short, she will tear the hfe out of 
you, making you pay in righteous retribution of annoy- 
ance, grief, vexation, shame, and sickness of heart, for 
the superlative folly of " marrying rich." 

But if not rich, then poor. Bah ! the thought 

made me stir the coals ; but there was still no blaze. 
The paltry earnings you are able to wring out of clients 
by the sweat of your brow, will now be all our income ; 
you will be pestered for pin-money, and pestered 
with your poor wife's-relations. Ten to one, she will 
stickle about taste — " Sir Visto's" — and want to make 
this so pretty, and that so charming, if she only 
had the means ; and is sure Paul (a kiss) can't 
deny his little Peggy such a trifling sum, and all for 
the common benefit. 

Then she, fca* one, means that her children shan't 
go a begging for clothes, — and another pull at the 
purse. Trust a poor mother to dress her children in 
finery ! 

Perhaps she is ugly ; — not noticeable at first ; but 
gi'owing on her, and (what is worse) growing faster 



Smoke — Signifying Doubt. 25 

on you. You wonder why you didn't see that vulgar 
nose long ago : and that lip — it is veiy strange, you 
think, that you ever thought it pretty. And then, — ^to 
come to breakfast, with her hair looking as it does, and 
you, not so much as daring to say — ^ Peggy, do brush 
your hair !" Her foot too — not veiy bad when de- 
cently chaussee — but now since she's married, she does 
wear such infernal slippers ! And yet for all this, to be 
prigging up for an hour, when any of my old chums 
come to dine with me ! 

*' Bless your kind hearts ! my dear fellows," said I, 
thrusting the tongs into the coals, and speaking out 
loud, as if my voice could reach from Virginia to 
Paris — " not married yet !" 

Perhaps Peggy is pretty enough — only shrewish. 

No matter for cold coflfee; — ^you should have 

been up before. 

"What sad, thin, poorly cooked chops, to eat with 
your rolls ! 

She thinks they are very good, and wonders 

how you can set such an example to your children. 

The butter is nauseating, 

She has no other, and hopes you'll not raise a 

storm about butter a httle turned. — I think I see 
myself — ruminated I — sitting meekly at table, scarce 
daring to Hft up my eyes, utterly fagged out with 
some quarrel of yesterday, choking down detestably 



26 Reveuies of a Bachelor. 

Bour mufBns, that my wife thinks are " delicious" — 
slipping in dried mouthfuls of burnt ham off the side 
of my fork tines, — slipping oflf my chair side-ways at 
the end, and slipping out with my hat between my 
knees, to business, and never feeling myself a compe- 
tent, sound-minded man, till the oak door is between 
me and Peggy ! 

— " Ha, ha, — not yet !" said I ; and in so earnest a 
tone, that my dog started to his feet — cocked his eye 
to have a good look into my face — met my smile of 
triumph with an amiable wag of the tail, and curled up 
again in the corner. 

Again, Peggy is rich enough, well enough, mild 
enough, only she doesn't care a fig for you. She has 
married you because father, or grandfather thought the 
match ehgible, and because she didn't wish to disoblige 
them. Besides, she didn't positively hate you, and 
thought you were a respectable enough young person ; 
— she has told you so i-epeatedly at dinner. She won- 
dei-s you like to read poetry; she wishes you would 
buy her a good cook-book ; and insists upon your mak- 
ing your will at the birth of the fii-st baby. 

She thinks Captain So-and-So a sj^lendid looking fel- 
low, and wishes you would trim up a little, were it only 
for appearance' sake. 

You need not hurry up from the office so early at 
night : — she, bless her dear heart ! — does not feel 



Smoke — Signifying Doubt. 27 

lonely. You read to her a love tale ; she interrupts 
the pathetic parts with directions to her seamstress. 
You read of marriages : she sighs, and asks if Captain 
So-and-So has left town ! She hates to be mewed up 
in a cottage, or between brick walls ; she does so love 
the Springs ! 

But, again, Peggy loves you ; — at least she swears it, 
with her hand on the Sorrows of Werter. She has 
pin-money which she spends for the Literary World, 
and the Friends in Council, She is not bad looking, 
save a bit too much of forehead ; nor is she sluttish, 
unless a negligd till three o'clock, and an ink stain on 
the fore finger be sluttish ; — but then she is such a sad 
blue! 

You never fancied when you saw her buried in a 
three volume novel, that it was anything more than a 
girlish vagary ; and when she quoted Latin, you 
thought innocently, that she had a capital memory for 
her samplers. 

But to be bored eternally about Divine Dant6 and 
funny Goldoni, is too bad. Your copy of Tasso, a 
treasure print of 1680, is all bethumbed and dogs- 
eared, and spotted with baby gruel. Even your 
Seneca — an Elzevir — is all sweaty with handling. She 
adores La Fontaine, reads Balzac with a kind of artist- 
scowl, and will not let Greek alone. 

You hint at broken rest and an aching head at 



28 Reveries op a Bachelor. 

breakfast, and she will fling you a scrap of Anthology 
— in lieu of the camphor bottle — or chant the alaT 
alcUy of tragic chorus. 

The nurse is getting dinner ; you are holding 

the baby ; Peggy is reading Bruyere. 

The fire smoked thick as pitch, and puffed out 
little clouds over the chimney piece. I gave the 
fore-stick a kick, at the thought of Peggy, baby, and 
Bruyere. 

Suddenly the flame flickered bluely athwart the 

smoke — caught at a twig below — rolled round the 
mossy oak-stick — twined among the crackling tree- 
hmbs — mounted — lit up the whole body of smoke, 
and blazed out cheerily and bright. Doubt vanished 
with Smoke, and Hope began with Flame. 



n. 

Blaze — Signifying Cheer. 

I PUSHED my chair back ; drew up another ; 
stretched out my feet cosily upon it, rested ray 
elbows on the chair arms, leaned my head on one 
hand, and looked straight into the leaping, and dancing 
flame. 

Love is a flame — ruminated I ; and (glancing 

round the room) how a flame brightens up a man's 
habitation. 

"Carlo," said I, calling up my dog into the light, 
" good fellow, Carlo !" and I patted him kindly, and he 
wagged his tail, and laid his nose across my knee, and 
looked wistfully up in my face ; then strode away, — 
turned to look again, and lay down to sleen. 



30 Bevebies of a Baohelob. 

" Pho, the brute !" said I, " it is not enough after all, 
to like a dog." 

If now in that chair yonder, not the one your 

feet lie upon, but the other, beside you — closer yet — 
were seated a sweet-faced girl, with a pretty little 
foot lying out upon the hearth — a bit of lace running 
round the swelling thi-oat — the hair parted to a charm 
over a forehead fair as any of your dreams ; — and if 
you could reach an arm around that chair back, 
without fear of giving offence, and suffer your fingei-s 
to play idly with those curls that escape down the 
neck; and if you could clasp with your other hand 
those httle white, taper fingers of hei*s, which lie so 
temptingly within reach, — and so, talk softly and low 
in presence of the blaze, while the hours slip without 
knowledge, and the winter winds whistle uncared 
for ; — if, in short, you were no bachelor, but the 
husband of some such sweet image — (dream, call it 
rather,) would it not be far pleasanter than this cold 
single night-sitting — counting the sticks — reckoning 
the length of the blaze, and the height of the falling 
snow ? 

And if, some or all of those wild vagaries that grow 
on your fancy at such an hour, you could whisper into 
listening, because loving eai-s — ears not tired with lis- 
tening, because it is you who whisper — ears ever indul- 
gent because eager to praise ; — and if your darkest 



Blaze — Signifying Cheer. 31 

fancies were lit up, not merely with bright wood fii-e, 
but with a ringing laugh of that sweet face turned up 
in fond rebuke — how far better, than to be waxing 
black, and sour, over pestilential humors — alone — your 
very dog asleep ! 

And if when a glowing thought comes into your 
brain, quick and sudden, you could tell it over as to a 
second self, to that sweet creature, who is not away, 
because she loves to be there ; and if you could watch 
the thought catching that girlish mind, illuming that 
fair brow, sparkhng in those pleasantest of eyes — how 
far better than to feel it slumbering, and going out, 
heavy, lifeless, and dead, in your own selfish fancy. 
And if a generous emotion steals over you — coming, 
you know not whither, would there not be a richer 
charm in lavishing it in caress, or endearing word, 
upon that fondest, and most dear one, than in patting 
your glossy coated dog, or sinking lonely to smiling 
slumbers ? 

How would not benevolence ripen with such monitor 
to task it ! How would not selfishness grow faint and 
dull, leaning ever to that second self, which is the 
loved one ! How would not guile shiver, and grow 
weak, before that girl-brow, and eye of innocence ! 
How would not all that bcvhood prized of enthu- 
siasm, and quick blood, and life, renew itself in such 
presence ! 



32 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

The fire was getting hotter, and I moved into the 
middle of the room. The shadows the flames made, 
were playing like fauy forms over floor, and wall, and 
ceiling. 

My fancy would snrely quicken, thought I, if such 
being were in attendance. Surely imagination would 
be stronger, and purer, if it could have the playful fan- 
cies of dawning womanhood to delight it. All toil 
would be torn from mind-labor, if but another heart 
grew into this present soul, quickening it, warming it, 
cheering it, bidding it ever, — God speed ! 

Her face would make a halo, rich as a rainbow, atop 
of all such noisome things, as we lonely souls call 
trouble. Her smile would illumine the blackest of 
crowding cares ; and darkness that now seats you de- 
spondent, in your solitary chair for days together, 
weaving bitter fancies, dreaming bitter dreams, would 
gi'ow light and thin, and spread, and float away, — ■ 
chased by that beloved smile. 

Your friend — poor fellow ! — dies : — never mind, that 
gentle clasp of her fingei-s, as she steals behind you, 
telling you not to weep — it is worth ten friends ! 

Your sister, sweet one, is dead — buried. The 
worms are busy with all her fairness. How it makes 
you think earth nothing but a spot to dig graves 
upon ! 

It is more : she.^ she says, will be a sister ; and 



X5LAZE — Signifying Cheer. 33 

the waving curls as she leans upon your shoulder, 
touch your cheek, and your wet eye turns to meet 
those other eyes God has sent liis angel, surely ! 

Your mother, alas for it, she is gone ! Is there any 
bitterness to a youth, alone, and homeless, like this ! 

But you are not homeless ; you are not alone : she 
is there ; — her teai*s softening youi-s, her smile lighting 
yours, her gi'ief killing yours ; and you hve again, to 
assuage that kind sorrow of hei*s. 

Then — those children, rosy, fair-haired ; no, they do 
not disturb you with their prattle now — they are 
yours ! Toss away there on the green-sward — never 
mind the hyacinths, the snowdrops, the violets, if so 
be any are there ; the perfume of their healthful lips is 
worth all the flowers of the world. No need now to 
gather wild bouquets to love, and cherish : flower, tree, 
gun, are all dead things ; things livelier hold your 
soul. 

And she, the mother, sweetest and fairest of all, 
watching, tending, caressing, loving, till your own heart 
gi-ows pained with tenderest jealousy, and cures itself 
with loving. 

You have no need now of any cold lecture to teach 
thankfulness : your heart is full of it. No need now, as 
once, of bursting blossoms, of trees taking leaf, and 
greenness, to turn thought kindly, and thankfully ; for 
ever, beside you, there is bloom, and ever beside you 



34 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

there is fruit, — for which eye, heart, and soul are full 
of unknown, and unspoken, because unsj^eakable, thank- 
offering. 

And if sickness catches you, binds you, lays you 
down — no lonely moanings, and wicked curses at care- 
less stepping nui-ses. The step is noiseless, and yet 
distinct beside you. The white curtains are drawn, or 
withdrawn by the magic of that other jDresence : and 
the soft, cool hand is upon yom* brow. 

No cold comfortings of friend-watchers, merely 
come in to steal a word away from that outer world 
which is pulling at their skirts ; but, ever, the sad, 
shaded brow of hei", whose lightest sorrow for your 
sake is your greatest grief, — if it were not a greater 

joy. 

The blaze was leaping light and high, and the wood 
falhng under the growing heat. 

So, continued I, this heart would be at length 

itself; — striving with eveiy thing gross, even now as it 
chngs to grossness. Love would make its strength na- 
tive and progressive. Earth's cares would fly. Joys 
would double. Susceptibihties be quickened ; Love 
master self ; and having made the mastery, stretch on- 
ward, and upward toward Infinitude. 

And if the end came, and sickness brought that fol- 
lower — Great Follower — which sooner or later is sure 
to come after, then the heart, and the hand of Love, 



Blaze — Signifying Cheer. 85 

ever near, are giving to your tired soul, daily and 
hourly, lessons of that love which consoles, which tri- 
umphs, which circleth all, and centereth in all — Love 
Infinite, and Divine ! 

Kind hands — none but hers — will smooth the hair 
upon your brow as the chill grows damp, and heavy on 
it ; and her fingere — none but hers — will he in youi-s 
as the wasted flesh stiffens, and hardens for the ground. 
Her tears, — you could feel no others, if oceans fell — 
will warm your drooping features once more to life ; 
once more your eye lighted in joyous triumph, kindle 
in her smile, and then 

The fire fell upon the hearth ; the blaze gave a last 
leap — a flicker — then another — caught a little remain- 
ing twig — blazed up — wavered — went out. 

There was nothing but a bed of glowing embers, 
over which the white ashes gathered fast. I was alone, 
with only my dog for company. 



m. 

Ashes — Signifying Desolation" 

AFTER all, thought I, ashes follow blaze, in- 
evitably as Death follows Life. Misery treads 
on the heels of Joy ; Anguish rides swift after 
Pleasm-e. 

" Come to me again, Carlo," said I, to my dog ; and 
I patted him fondly once more, but now only by the 
light of the dying embers. 

It is very little pleasure one takes in fondling brute 
favorites; but it is a pleasure that when it passes, 
leaves no void. It is only a little alleviating redun- 
dance -n your solitary heart-life, which if lost, another 
can be supphed. • 

But if your heart, not solitary — not quieting its hu- 



AsH£S — Signifying Desolation. 3*7 

moi's with mere love of chase, or dog — not repressing 
year after year, its earnest yearnings after something 
better, and more s^^iritual, — has fairly linked itself by 
bonds strong as hfe, to another heart — is the casting 
oflf easy, then ? 

Is it then only a little heart-redundancy cut off, 
which the next bright sunset will fill up ? 

And my fancy, as it had painted doubt under the 
smoke, and cheer under warmth of the blaze, so now it 
began under the faint light of the smouldering embers, 
to picture heart-desolation. 

What kind congratulatory letters, hosts of 

them, coming from old and half-forgotten friends, now 
that your happiness is a year, or two years old ! 

" Beautiful." 

Aye to be sm-e beautiful ! 

"Kich." 

Pho, the dawdler ! how Httle he knows of heart- 

trea«.ure, who speaks of wealth to a man who loves his 
wife, as a wife only should be loved ! 
Ling." 
-Young indeed ; guileless as infancy ; charming 



as the morning. 

Ah, these letters bear a sting : they bring to mind, 
with new, and newer freshness, if it be possible, the 
value of that, which you tremble lest you lose. 

How anxiously you watch that step — if it lose not its 



88 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

buoyancy ; How you study the color on that cheek, if 
it grow not fainter ; How you tremble at the lustre in 
those eyes, if it be not the lustre of Death , How you 
totter under the weight of that muslin sleeve — a phan- 
tom weight ! How you fear to do it, and yet press for- 
ward, to note if that breathing be quickened, as you 
ascend the home-heights, to look off on sunset lighting 
the plain. 

Is your sleep, quiet sleep, after that she has 
whispered to you her fears, and in the same breath-— 
soft as a sigh, shai*p as an arrow — bid you bear it 
bravely ? 

Perhaps, — the embere were now glowing fresher, a 
little kindling, before the ashes — she triumj)hs over 
disease. 

But, Poverty, the world's almoner, has come to you 
with ready, spare hand. 

Alone, with your dog hving on bones, and you, on 
hope — ^kindhng each morning, dying slowly each 
night, — this could be borne. Philosophy would bring 
home its stores to the lone-man. Money is not in his 
hand, but Knowledge is in his brain ! and from that 
brain he draws out faster, as he draws slower from his 
pocket. He remembers : and on remembrance he 
can hve for days, and weeks. The garret, if a garret 
covers him, is rich in fancies. The rain if it pelts, 
pelts only him used to rain-peltings. And his dog 



Ashes — Signifying Dks o l ation. 39 

crouches not in dread, but in companionship. His 
crust he dixides ^vith him, and laughs. He crowns 
himself with glorious memories of Cervantes, though 
he begs : if he nights it under the stars, he dreams 
heaven-sent dreams of the prisoned, and homeless 
Galileo. 

He hums old sonnets, and snatches of poor Jonson's 
plays. He chants Dryden's odes, and dwells on 
Otway's rhyme. He reasons with Bolingbroke or 
Diogenes, as the humor takes him ; and laughs at the 
world: for the world, thank Heaven, has left him 
alone ! 

Keep your money, old misers, and your palaces, old 
princes, — the world is mine ! 

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny.— 
You cannot rob me of free nature's grace, 

You cannot shut the windows of the sky ; 
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace 

The woods and lawns, by living streams, at eve, 
Let health, my nerves and finer fibres brace, 

And I, their toys, to the great children, leave. 
Of Fancy, Reason, Virtue, naught can me bereave ! 

But — if not alone ? 

If she is clinging to you for support, for consolation, 
for home, for life — she, reared in luxury perhaps, is 
faint for bread ? 

Then, the iron entei-s the soul ; then the nighfcn 



40 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

darken under any sky light. Then the days grow 
long, even in the solstice of winter. 

She may not complain ; what then ? 

Will your heart grow strong, if the strength of her 
love can dam up the fountains of tears, and the tied 
tongue not tell of bereavement? "Will it solace you 
to find her parting the poor treasure of food you have 
stolen for her, with begging, foodless children ? 

But this ill, strong hands, and Heaven's help, will 
put down. Wealth again; Flowei*s again; Patrimo- 
nial acres again ; Brightness again. But your little 
Bessy, your favorite child is pining. 

Would to God ! you say in agony, that wealth could 
bring fulness again into that blanched cheek, or round 
those little thin lips once more ; but it cannot. Thin- 
ner and thinner they grow ; plaintive and more plain- 
tive her sweet voice. 

"Dear Bessy" — and your tones tremble; you feel 
that she is on the edge of the grave ? Can you pluck 
her back ? Can endearments stay her ? Business is 
heavy, away from the loved child ; home, you go, to 
fondle while yet time is left — but this time you are too 
late. She is gone. She cannot hear you : she cannot 
thank you for the violets you put within her stiff white 
hand. 

And then — the grassy mound — the cold shadow of 
head- stone 1 



Ashes — Signifying Desolation. 41 

The wind, growing with the night, is rattling at the 
window panes, and whistles dismally. I wipe a tear, 
and in the interval of my Reverie, thank God, that I 
am no such mourner. 

But gaiety, snail-footed, creeps back to the house- 
hold. All is bi'ight again ; — 



-the violet bed 's not sweeter 



Than the delicious breath marriage sends forth. 

Her lip is rich and full ; her cheek dehcate as a 
flower. Her frailty doubles your love. 

And the little one she clasps — frail too — too frail : 
the boy you had set your hopes and heart on. You 
have watched him growing, ever prettier, ever winning 
more and more upon your soul. The love you bore to 
him when he first hsped names — your name and 
hers — has doubled in strength now that he asks inno- 
cently to be taught of this, or that, and promises you 
by that quick curiosity that flashes in his eye, a mind 
full of intelligence. 

And some hair-breadth e&cape by sea, or flood, that 
ho perhaps may have had — which unstrung your soul 
to such tears, as you pray God may be spared you 
again — ^has endeared the little fellow to your heart, a 
thousand fold. 

And, now with his pale sister in the gi'ave, all that 



42 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

love has come away from the mound, where worms 
feast, and centers on the boy. 

How you watch the storms lest they harm him ! 
IIow often you steal to his bed late at night, and lay 
your hand lightly upon the brow, where the curls clus- 
ter thick, rising and falhng with the throbbing temples, 
and watch, for minutes together, the little lips half 
parted, and listen — your ear close to them — if the 
breathing be regular and sweet ! 

But the day comes — the night rather — when you 
can catch no breathing. 

Aye, put your hair away, — compose youi-self — listen 
again. 

JSTo, there is nothing ! 

Put your hand now to his brow — damp indeed — • 
but not with healthful night-sleep ; it is not yoiu* 
hand, no, do not deceive yourself — it is your loved 
boy's forehead that is so cold ; and your loved boy 
will never speak to you again — never play again — he is 
dead ! 

Oh, the tears — the teai-s ; what blessed things are 
tears! Never fear now to let them fall on his fore- 
head, or his lip, lest you waken him ! — Clasp him — 
clasp him harder — you cannot hurt, you cannot waken 
him ! Lay him down, gently or not, it is the same ; 
he is stiff*; he is stark and cold. 

But courage is elastic ; it is our pride. It recov- 



Ashes — Signiftinc;^ i^esolation. 43 

ci-s itself easier, thought I, than these embers will get 
into blaze again. 

But coui'age, and patience, and faith, and hope have 
their limit. Blessed be the man who escapes such trial 
as will detemiine limit ! 

To a lone man it comes not near; for how can 
trial take hold where there is nothing by which to 
try? 

A funeral ? You reason with philosophy. A grave 
yard? You read Hervey and muse upon the wall. 
A friend dies? You sigh, you pat your dog,— it 
is over. Losses? You retrench— you light your 
pipe_it is forgotten. Calumny? You laugh — you 
sleep. 

But with that childless wdfe clinging to you in love 
and sorrow — what then ? 

Can you take down Seneca now, and coolly blow the 
dust from the leaf-tops ? Can you crimp your lip with 
Voltaire ? Can you smoke idly, your feet dangling 
with the ivies, your thoughts all waving fancies upon a 
church-yard wall— a wall that borders the grave of 
your boy ? 

Can you amuse yourself by turning stinging Martial 
into rhyme ? Can you pat your dog, and seeing him 
wakeful and kind, say, " it is enough ?" Can you sneer 
at calumny, and sit by your fire dozing ? 

Blessed, thought I again, is the man who escapes 



44 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

such trial as will measure the limit of patience and the 
limit of courage ! 

But the trial comes : — colder and colder were gi'ow- 
ing the embers. 

That wife, over whom your love broods, is fading,. 
Not beauty fading; — that, now that your heart is 
wrapped in her being, would be nothing. 

She sees with quick eye your dawning apprehen- 
sion, and she tries hard to make that step of hera 
elastic. 

Your trials and your loves together have centered 
your affections. They are not now as when you were 
a lone man, wide spread and superficial. They have 
caught from domestic attachments a finer tone and 
touch. They cannot shoot out tendrils into barren 
world-soil and suck up thence strengthening nutriment. 
They have grown under the forcing-glass of home-roof, 
tliey will not now bear exposure. 

You do not now look men in the face as if a heart- 
bond was hnking you — as if a community of feehng 
lay between. There is a heart-bond that absorbs all 
others; there is a community that monopolizes your 
feeling. When the heart lay wide open, before it had 
grown upon, and closed around particular objects, it 
could take strength and cheer, from a hundred connec- 
tions that now seem colder than ice. 



Ashe s — S ignifying Desolation. 45 

And now those particular objects — alas for you ! — 
are failing. 

What anxiety pui-sues you ! How you struggle to 
fancy — there is no danger ; how she struggles to per 
suade you — there is no danger ! 

How it grates now on your ear — the toil and tur- 
moil of the city ! It was music when you were 
alone ; it was pleasant even, when from the din you 
were elaborating comforts for the cherished objects; 
— when you had such sweet escape as evening drew 
on. 

Now it maddens you to see the world careless while 
you are steeped in care. They hustle you in the street ; 
they smile at you across the table ; they bow carelessly 
over the way ; they do not know what canker is at 
your heart. 

The undei-taker comes with his bill for the dead boy's 
funeral. He knows your gi'ief ; he is respectful. You 
bless hi-m in yom* soul. You wish the laughing street- 
goers were all undertakers. 

Your eye follows the physician as he leaves your 
house : is he wise, you ask yourself ; is he prudent ? 
is he the best ? Did he never fail — is he never for- 
getful? 

And now the hand that touches yours, is it no thin- 
ner — no whiter than yesterday ? Sumiy days come 
when she revives ; color comes back j she breathes 



46 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

freer ; slie picks flowers ; she meets you with a smile : 
hope Hves again. 

But the next day of storai she is fallen. She cannot 
talk even ; she presses your hand. 

You hurry away from business before your time. 
What matter for clients — who is to reap the re- 
wards? What matter for fame — whose eye will it 
brighten ? What matter for riches — whose is the in- 
heritance ? 

You find her propped with pillows ; she is looking 
over a little picture-book bethumbed by the dear boy 
she has lost. She hides it in her chair ; she has pity 
on you. 

Another day of revival, when the spring sun 

shines, and flowers open out of doors; she leans on 
your arm, and strolls into the garden where the first 
birds are singing. Listen to them with her ; — what 
memones are in bird-songs ! You need not shudder at 
her teai-s — they are tears of Thanksgiving. Press the 
hand that lies hght upon your arm, and you, too, 
thank God, while yet you may ! 

You are early home — mid-afternoon. Your step is 
not light ; it is heavy, terrible. 

They have sent for you. 

She is lying down ; her eyes, half closed ; her 
breathing long and interrupted. 



Ashe s — S iGNtrriNG Desolation. 47 

She hears you ; her eye opens ; you put your hand 
in hers; youi-s trembles; — hers does not. Her lips 
move ; it is your name. 

" Be strong," she says, " God will help you !'* 
She presses harder your hand : — " Adieu !" 
A long breath — another; — ^}^ou are alone again. 
No tears now ; poor man ! You cannot find them ! 

Again home early. There is a smell of varnish 



in your house. A coffin is there ; they have clothed 
the body in decent grave clothes, and the undertaker 
is screwing down the lid, slipping round on tip-toe. 
Does he fear to waken her ? 

He asks you a simple question about the inscription 
upon the plate, rubbing it with his coat cuff. You 
look him straight in the eye ; you motion to the door ; 
you dare not speak. 

He takes up his hat and glides out stealthful as a 
cat. 

The man has done his work well for all. It is a 
nice coffin — a very nice coffin ! Pass your hand over 
it — how smooth ! 

Some sprigs of mignionette are lying carelessly in 
a httle gilt-edged saucer. She loved mignionette. 

It is a good staunch table the coffin rests on; — • 
it is your table ; you ai-e a housekeeper — a man of 
family 1 



48 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

Aye, of family ! — keep down outcry, or the nuree 
will be in. Look over at the pinched features ; is this 
all that is left of her ? And where is your heart now ? 
No, don't thrust your nails into your hands, nor mangle 
your lip, nor grate yom* teeth together. If you could 
only weep ! 

Another day. The coffin is gone out. The 

stupid mourners have wept — what idle teai*s ! She, 
with your crushed heart, has gone out I 

Will you have pleasant evenings at your home 
now ? 

Go into your parlor that your prim housekeeper 
has made comfortable with clean hearth and blaze of 
sticks. 

Sit down in yom* chair; there is another velvet- 
cushioned one, over against yom-s — empty. You press 
your fingers on your eye-balls, as if you would press 
out something that hurt the brain ; but you cannot. 
Your head leans upon your hand ; your eye rests upon 
the flashing blaze. 

Ashes always come after blaze. 

Go now into the room where she was sick — softly, 
lest the prim housekeeper come after. 

They have put new dimity upon her chair; they 
have hung new curtains over the bed. They have 
removed from the stand its phials, and silver bell ; they 
have put a little vase of flowei-s in their place ; the 



Ashes — Signifying Desolation. 49 

perfume wUl not offend the sick sense now. They have 
half opened the window, that the room so long closed 
may have air. It will not be too cold. 

She is not there. 

Oh, God ! — thou who dost temper the wind to 

the shorn lamb — be kind 1 

The embers were dark ; I stirred them ; there was 
no sign of life. My dog was asleep. The clock in my 
tenant's chamber had struck one. 

I dashed a tear or two from my eyes ; — how they 
came there I know not. I half ejaculated a prayer of 
thanks, that such desolation had not yet come nigh 
me; and a prayer of hope — that it might never come. 

In a half hour more, I was sleeping soundly. My 

reverie was ended. 
3 



Gccoiib UtmxxL 



Sta Coal autr ^ntljra^ik. 



BY A CITY GRATE. 



BLESSED be letters ! — tbey are tlie monitoi-s, 
they are also the comforters, and they are the 
only true heart-talkers ! Your speech, and their 
speeches, are conventional ; they are moulded by 
circumstance ; they are suggested by the observation, 
remark, and influence of the parties to "wiiom the 
speaking is addressed, or by whom it may be over- 
heard. 

Your truest thousfht is modified half throuo-h its 
utterance by a look, a sign, a smile, or a sneer. It is 
not individual ; it is not integral : it is social and 
mixed, — half of you, and half of others. It bends, it 
sways, it multiphes, it retires, and it advances, as the 
talk of others presses, relaxes, or quickens. 



54 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

But it is not so of Letters : — there ycai are, with 
only the soulless pen, and the snow-white, virgin paper. 
Your soul is measuring itself by itself, and saying its 
own sayings : there are no sneers to modify its utter- 
ance, — no scowl to scare, — nothing is present, but you 
and your thought. 

Utter it then freely — wiite it down — stamp it — burn 
it in the ink ! There it is, a true soul-print ! 

Oh, the glory, the freedom, the passion of a letter ! 
It is worth aJ the lip-talk in the w^orld. Do you say, 
it is studied, made up, acted, rehearsed, contrived, 
artistic ? 

Let me see it then ; let me run it over ; tell me age, 
sex, circumstance, and I. will tell you if it be studied or 
real ; — if it be the merest hp-slang put into words, or 
heart-talk blazing on the paper. 

I have a little pacquet, not Very large, tied up with 
narrow crimson ribbon, now soiled with frequent hand- 
hng, which far into some winter's night, I take down 
from its nook upon my shelf, and untie, and open, and 
run over, with such sorrow, and such joy, — such tears 
and such smiles, as I am sure make me for weeks after, 
a kinder, and holier man. 

There are in this little pacquet, letters in the familiar 

hand of a mother what gentle admonition; — ■ 

what tender affection ! — God have mercy on Lira 
who outlives the tears that such admonitions, and 



Br A City G rate. o5 

siicli affection call up to the eye! There are othei's in 
the budget, in the delicate, and unformed hand of a 
loved, and lost sister ; — written when she, and you were 
full of glee, and the best mirth of youthfulness ; does 
it harm you to recall that mirthfulness ? or to trace 
again, for the hundredth time, that scrawhng postscript 
at the bottom, with its i^s so carefully dotted, and its 
gigantic i's so carefully crossed, by the childish hand 
of a little brother ? 

I have added latterly to that pacquet of letters ; I 
almost need a new and longer ribbon ; the eld one is 
D;etting too short. Not a few of these new and cher- 
ished letters, a former Reverie* has brought to me ; 
not letters of cold praise, saying it was well done, 
artfully executed, prettily imagined — no such thing: 
but letters of sympathy — of sympathy which means 
Bympathy — the "Tra^yijxj and the rfuv. 

It would be cold, and dastardly v,'ork to copy 
them ; I am too selfish for that. It is enough to say 
that they, the kind writers, have seen a heart in the 
Eeverle— have felt that it was real, true. They 
know it ; a secret influence has told it What 
matters it, pray, if literally, there was no wife, and no 
dead child, and no coffin in the house ? Is not 

* The first Reverie— Smoke, l^Iame, and Ashes, was 
published some months previous to this, in the Southern 
Literary Messenger. 



56 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

feeling, feeling ; and heart, heart ? Are not these 
fancies thronging on my brain, bringing tears to my 
eyes, bringing joy to my soul, as living, as anything 
human can be hving ? What if they have no material 
type — no objective form ? All that is crude, — a mere 
reduction of ideality to sense, — a transformation of 
the spiritual to the earthy, — a levelhng of soid to 
matter. 

Are we not creatures of thought and passion ? Is 
anything about us more earnest than that same 
thought and passion ? Is there anything more real, — 
more characteristic of that great and dim destiny to 
which we are born, and wiich may be written down in 
that terrible word — Forever ? 

Let those who will then, sneer at what in their 
wisdom they call untruth — at what is false, because it 
has no material presence : this does not create falsity ; 
would to Heaven that it did ! 

And yet, if there was actual, material truth, super- 
added to Reverie, would such objectors sympathize 
the more ? No ! — a thousand times, no ; the heart 
that has no sympathy with thoughts and feelings that 
scorch the soul, is dead also — whatever its mock- 
mg tears, and gestures may say — to a coffin or a 
grave ! 

Let them pass, and we will come back to these 
cherished lettei-s. 



Beside a City Grate. 57 

A motlier, who 1ms lost a child, has, she says, shed a 
tear — not one, but many — over the dead boy's cold* 
ness. And another, who has not lost, but who trembles 
lest she lose, has found the words failing as she read, 
and a dim, sorrow-born^a mist, spreading over the 
page. 

Another, yet rejoicing in all those family ties, that 
make hfe a charm, has listened nervously to careful 
reading, until the husband is called home, and the 
coffin is in the house. — " Stop !" — she says ; and a gush 
of tears tells the rest. 

Yet the cold critic will say — " it was artfully 
done." A curse on him ! — it was not art : it was 
nature. 

Another, a young, fresh, healthful girl-mind, has 
seen something in the love-picture — albeit so weak — of 
truth ; and has kindly believed that it must be earnest. 
Aye, indeed is it, fair, and generous one, — earnest 
as hfe and hope ! Who indeed with a heart at all, 
that has not yet slipped away irreparably, and forever 
from the shores of youth — from that fairy land which 
young enthusiasm creates, and over which bright 
dreams hover — but knows it to be real ? And so such 
things will be real, till hopes are dashed, and Death is 
come. 

Another, a father, has laid down the book in 
tears. 



ns Reveries of a B a c ii e l c r . 

— God bless tliem all ! How far better tliis, than 
tbe cold praise of newspaper paragraphs, or the criti- 
cally contrived approval of colder friends ! 

Let me gather np these letters, carefully, — to be 
read w^hen the heart is faint, and sick of all that there 
is unreal, and selfish in the world. Let me tie them 
together, with a new, and longer bit of ribbon — ^not by 
a love knot, that is too hard — but hy an easy shpping 
knot, that so I may get at them the better. And now, 
they are all together, a snug pacquet, and we will label 
them, not sentimentally, (I pity the one who thinks it!) 
but earnestly, and in the best meaning of the term — 
Souvenirs du Cceur. 

Thanks to my first Reverie, which has added to such 
a treasure ! 

— Aad now to my Second Reverie. 

I am no longer in the country. The fields, the trees, 
the brooks are far away from me, and yet they are very 
present. A letter from my tenant — how different from 
those other letters ! — lies upon my table, telling me 
w^hat fields he has broken up for the autumn grain, and 
how many beeves he is fattening, and how the potatoes 
are turning out. 

But I am in a garret of the city. From my window 
I look over a mass of crowded house-tops — moralizing 
often upon the scene, but in a strain too long, and som- 
bre to be set down here, Li place of the wide countiy 



I>r:sTDE A CiTi' Grate. 59 

cliiinncy, witli its iron fire-dogs, is a snng g>-ato, wliere 
tlie maid makes mc a fire in tlie morning, and rekindles 
it in tlie afternoon. 

I am usually foirly seated in my chair— a cozily 
stiified office chair — by five or six o'clock of the eve- 
ning. Tlie lire has been newly made, perhaps an hour 
before : first, the maid drops a withe of paper in the 
bottom of the grate, then a stick or two of pine-wood, 
and afler it a hod of Liverpool coal ; so that by the 
time I am seated for the evening, the sea-coal is fairly 
in a blaze. 

When this has sunk to a level with the second bar 
of the grate, the maid replenishes it with a hod of An- 
thracite ; and I sit musing and reading, while the new 
coal warms and kindles — not leaving my place, until it 
has sunk to the third bar of the grate, which marks my 
bed-time. 

I love these accidental measures of the hours, which 
belong to you, and your life, and not to the world. A 
watch is no more the measure of your time, than of 
the time of your neighbors ; a church clock is as public, 
and vulgar as a cliurch-warden. I would as soon think 
of hiring the parish sexton to make my bed, as to regu- 
late m}^ time by the parish clock. 

A shadow that the sun casts upon your carpet, or a 
streak of light on a slated roof yonder, or the burning 
of your Pre, ^ro plensant time-keepers, — full of presence, 



60 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

full of companionship, and full of the warning — time i& 
passing ! 

In the summer season I have even measm-ed my 
reading, and my night-watch, by the burning of a 
taper ; and I have scratched upon the handle to the 
little bronze taper-holder, that meaning passage of the 
New Testament, — Nu^ ya^ ^^X^'^^' — ^^^ night cometh ! 

But I must get upon my Reverie : — it was a drizzly 
evening ; I had worked hard during the day, and had 
drawn my boots — thrust my feet into slippei-s — thrown 
on a Turkish loose di*ess, and Greek cap — souvenirs 
to me of other times, and other places — and sat 
watching the hvely, uncertain, yellow play of the 
bituminous flame. 



Sea-Coal. 

IT is like a flirt — mused I; — lively, uncertain, 
bright-colored, waving here and there, melting the 
coal into black shapeless mass, making foul, sooty- 
smoke, and pasty, trashy residuum ! Yet withal, — 
pleasantly sparkling, dancing, prettily waving, and leap- 
ing Hke a roebuck from point to point. 

How like a flii't ! And yet is not this tossing caprice 
of girlhood, to which I liken my sea-coal flame, a native 
play of hfe, and belonging by nature to the play-tirne 
of life 5 Is it not a sort of essential fire-kindling to the 
weightier and truer passions — even as Jenny puts the 
soft coal first, the better to kindle the anthracite? 
Is it not a sort of necessary consumption of young 



62 Reveries of a Bacitelor. 

vapors, wliicli float in the soul, and wliicli is left there- 
after the purer ? Is there not a stage somewhere in 
every man's youth, for just such waving, idle heart- 
blaze, which means nothing, yet which must be got 
over ? 

Lamartine saj'-s somewhere, ver}'- prettily, that there 
is more of quick running sap, and floating shade in a 
young tree ; but more of fire in the heart of a sturdy 
oak : — II y a plus de seve folle et cfomore Jlottante 
dans res jeunes 2^lcmts de la foret ; il y a i^lus defe'u. 
dans le vieux cceur du clime. 

Is Lamartine playing off his prettiness of expression, 
dressing up with his poetry, — making a good con- 
science against the ghost of some accusing Graziella, or 
is there truth in the matter ? 

A man who has seen sixty yeai-s, whether widower 
or bachelor, may w' ell put such sentiment into words : 
it feeds his wasted heart with hope ; it renews the 
exultation of youth by the pleasantest of equivocation, 
and the most charming of self-confidence. But after 
all, is it not true ? Is not the heart like new blossom- 
ing field-plants, whose first flowers are half-formed, one- 
sided perhaps, but by-and-by, in maturity of season, 
putting out wholesome, well-formed blossoms, that will 
hold their leaves long and bravely ? 

Bulwer in his story of the Caxtons, has counted 
first heart-flights mere fancy-passages — a dalliance 



Sea -Coal. Gd 

witli llio breezes of love — wliicli pass, and leave liealtli- 
ful heart appetite. Half tlie reading world has road 
the story of Ti-evanion and Pisistratus. But Biilwer 
is — past ; his heart-hfe is used up — cpuise. Such a 
man can very safely rant about the cool judgment of 
after years. 

Where does Shakspeare put the unripe heart-age ? — • 
xVll of it before the ambition, that alone makes the 
hero-soul. The Shakspeare man " sighs like a fm-nace," 
before he stretches his arm to achieve the " bauble, 
riiputation." 

Yet Shakspeare has meted a soul-love, mature and 
ripe, without any young furnace sighs to Desdemona 
and Othello. Cordelia, the svv^eetest of his play crea- 
tions, loves without any of the mav/kish matter, whicli 
makes the whining love of a Juliet. And Florizel in 
the Winter's Tale, says to Perdita, in the true spirit of 
a most sound heart — 

My desires 
Run not before mine honor, nor my wishes 
Burn hotter than my faith. 

How is it with Hector and Andromache ? — no sea-coal 
blaze, bu": one that is constant, enduring, pervading : 
a pair of hearts full of esteem, and best love, — good, 
honest, and sound. 



64 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

Look now at Adam and Eve, in God's presence, 
with Milton for showman. Shall we quote bj tliis 
sparkling blaze, a gem from the Paradise Lost ? We 
will hum it to ourselves — what Raphael sings to Adam 
— a classic song. 

Him, serve and fear ! 

Of other creatures, as Him pleases best 
Wherever placed, let Him dispose ; joy thou 
In what he gives to thee, this Paradise 
And thy fair Eve ! 

And again : 

Love refines 

The thoughts, and heart enlarges : hath his seat 

In reason, and is judicious : is the scale 

By which to Heavenly love thou may'st ascend I 

None of the playing sparkle in this love, which 
belongs to the flame of my sea-coal fire, that is now 
dancing, lively as a cricket. But on looking about 
my garret chamber, I can see nothing that resembles 
the archangel Raphael, or " thy fair Eve." 

There is a degree of moisture about the sea-coal 
flame, which with the most earnest of my musing, I 
find it impossible to attach to that idea of a waving, 
snarkling heart which my fire suggests. A damp 



R E A - C O A L . C5 

heart must be a foul thing to be sure ! But whoever 
heard of one ? 

Wordsworth somewhere in the Excui'sion, says : — 

The good die first, 
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust 
Burn to the socket ! 

What, in the name of Rydal Mount, is a diy heart ? 
A dusty one, I can conceive of: a bachelor's heart 
must be somewhat dusty, as he nears the sixtieth 
summer of his pilgrimage ; — and hung over with 
cobwebs, in which sit such watchful gray old spiders 
as Avarice, and Selfishness, forever on the look out for 
such bottle-green flies as Lust. 

" I will never" — said I — gTiping at the elbows of my 
chair, — " live a bachelor till sixty : — never, so surely as 
there is hope in man, or charity in woman, or faith in 
both !" 

And with that thought, my heart leaped about in 
playful coruscations, even like the flame of the sea-coal ; 
— rising, and wrapping round old and tender memories, 
and images that were present to me, — trying to cling, 
and yet no sooner fastened, than off — dancing again, 
riotous in its exultation — a succession of heart-sparkles, 
blazing, and going out ! 

— ^And is there not — mused I, — a portion of this 



C)Q REVETvITiS OF A B A C II E L R . 

worlJ, forever Llazhig in just such lively sparkles, 
waving here and there as the air-currents fan them ? 

Take for instance your heart of sentiment, and quick 
sensibility, a weak, warm-working heart, flying off in 
tangents of unhappy influence, unguided by *prudence, 
and perhaps virtue. There is a paper by Mackenzie in 
the Mirror for April, 1780, which sets this untoward 
sensibility in a strong light. 

And the more it i;5 indulged, the more strong and 
binding such a habit of sensibility becomes. Poor 
Mackenzie himself must have suftered thus; you 
cannot read his books without feehng it ; your eye, 
in spite of you, runs over with his sensitive griefs, 
while you are half-ashamed of his success at picture- 
making. It is a terrible inheritance ; and one that a 
strong man or woman will study to subdue : it is a 
vain sea-coal sparkling, which will count no good. 
The world is made of much hard, flinty substance, 
against which your better, and holier thoughts will be 
striking fire ; — see to it, that the sparks do not burn 
you ! 

But what a happy, careless hfe belongs to this 
Bachelorhood, in which you may strike out boldly 
right and left ! Your heart is not bound to another 
which may be full of only sickly vapors of feeling ; 
nor is it frozen to a cc (d, man's heart under a silk 
boddice — knowini;- nothing;- of tenderness but the 



Sra-Coai 07 

name, to prate of; and nothing- of sonl-confidenco, but 
clumsy confession. And if in your careless out-goings 
of feeling, you get here, only a httle lip vapidity in 
return; be sure that you will find, elsewhere, a true 
heart utt*erance. This last you will cherish in youi' 
inner soul — a nucleus for a new group of i-vffec- 
tions; and the other will pass with a whiff of your 
cigar. 

Or if your feelings are touched, struck, hurt, who 
is the wiser, or the worse, but you only ? And have 
you not the whole skein of your heart-life in your 
own fingers to wind, or unwind, in what shape you 
please? Shake it or twine it, or tangle it, by the 
light of your fire, as you fancy best. He is a Aveak 
man who cannot twist and weave the thre.'ids of his 
feeling — however fine, 'however tangled, however 
strained, or however strong — into the great cable of 
Purpose, by which he lies moored to his fife of 
Action. • 

Reading is a great, and happy disentangler of all 
tliose knotted snarls — those extravagant vagaries, which 
belong to a heart sparkling with sensibility ; but the 
r(^ading must be cautiously directed. There is old, 
placid Burton when your soul is weak, and its diges- 
tion of life's humors is bad ; there is Cowper when 
your spirit runs into kindly, half-sad, religious musing ; 
there is Crabbe when you would shake off vagary, by a 



C8 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

little handling of sharp actualities. There is Voltaire, 
a homeopathic doctor, whom you can read when you 
want to make a play of life, and crack jokes at Nature, 
and be witty with Destiny ; there is Rousseau, when 
you want to lose yourself in- a mental dream-land, and 
be beguiled bv the harmony of soul-music and soul- 
culture. 

And when you would shake off this, and be sturdiest 
among the battlers for hard, world-success, and be fore- 
warned of rocks against which you must surely smite — 
read Bolingbroke ; — run over the letters of Lyttleton ; 
read, and think of what you read, in the cracking 
hnes of Rochefoucauld. How he sums us up in his 
stinging words ! — how he puts the scalpel between the 
nerves — yet he never hurts ; for he is dissecting dead 
matter. 

If you are in a genial careless mood, who is better 
than such extem2)orizers of feeling and nature — good- 
hearted fellows — as Sterne and Fielding ? 

And then again, there are Milton and Isaiah, to lift 
up one's soul until it touches cloud-land, and you wan- 
der with their guidance, on swift feet, to the very gates 
of Heaven. 

But this sparkling sensibihty to one straggling 
under infirmity, or with grief or poverty, is veiy 
dreadful. The soul is too nicely and keenly hinged 
to be wrenched without mischief. How it shrinks. 



Sea-Coal. GO 

like a hurt child, from all that is vulgar, harsh, and 
crude ! Alas, for such a man ! — he will be buffeted, 
from beginning to end ; his hfe will be a sea of 
troubles. The poor victim of his own quick spirit 
he wanders with a great shield of doubt hung before 
him, so that none, not even friends, can see the good- 
ness of such kindly qualities as belong to him. 
Poverty, if it comes upon him, he wrestles with in 
secret, with strong, frenzied struggles. He wi'aps 
his scant clothes about him to keep him from the 
cold; and eyes the world, as if every creature in it 
was breathing chill blasts at him, from every opened 
mouth. He threads the crowded ways of the city, 
proud in his gi'iefs, vain in his weakness, not stopping 
to do good. Bulwer, in the New Timon, has painted 
in a pair of stinging Pope-like hues, this feehng in a 
woman : 

Her vengeful pride, a kind of madness grown, 

She hugged her wrongs, her sorrow was her throne ! 

Cold picture ! yet the heart was sparkling under it, 
like my sea-coal fire ; lifting and blazing, and lighting 
and faUing, — ^but with no object ; and only such httle 
heat as begins and ends within. 

Those fine sensibihties, ever active, are chasing 



YO Reveries 3f a Bachelor. 

and observing* all; tlic-y catch a hue from what the 
dull and callous pass by unnoticed, — because unknown. 
They blunder at the great variety of the world's 
opinions; they see tokens of belief, where others see 
none. That dehcate organization is a curse to a 
man ; and yet poor fool, he does not see where his 
cure hes ; he wonders at his griefs, and has never 
reckoned with himself their source. He studies 
others, without studying himself. He eats the leaves 
that sicken, and never pluclis up the root that will 
cure. 

With a woman it is worse ; with her, this delicate 
susceptibility is like a frail flower, that quivers at every 
rough blast of heaven ; her own delicacy wounds her ; 
her highest charm is perverted to a curse. 

She listens with fear; she reads with trembhng ; she 
looks with dread. Her sympathies give a tone, like the 
harp of ^olus, to the slightest breath. Her sensibility 
lights up, and quivers and falls, like the flame of a sea- 
coal fire. 

If she loves — (and may not a Bachelor reason on 
this daintiest of topics) — her love is a gushing, wavy 
flame, lit up with hope, that has only a little kindling 
matter to light it; and this soon burns out. Yet 
intense sensibility will persuade her that the flame 
still scorches. She will mistake the annoyance of 
affection unrequited for the sting of a passion, that 



Se A 'Co AL. 71 

she fancies still burns. She does not look deep enough 
to see that the passion is gone, and the shocked sensi- 
tiveness emits only faint, yellowish sparkles in its place ; 
her high-wrought organization makes those sparks seem 
a veritable flame. 

With her, judgment, prudence, and discretion are 
cold measm-ed terms, which have no meaning, except 
as they attach to the actions of others. Of her own 
acts, she never predicates them ; feeling is much too 
high, to allow her to submit to any such obtrusive 
guides of conduct. She needs disappointment to 
teach her truth; — to teach that all is not gold that 
ghtters — to teach that all warmth does not blaze. 
But let her beware how she sinks under any fancied 
disappointments : she who sinks under real disappoint- 
ment, lacks philosophy ; but she who sinks under a 
fancied one, lacks purpose. Let her flee as the 
plague, such brooding thoughts as she will love to 
cherish ; let her spurn dark fancies as the visitants of 
hell ; let the soul rise with the blaze of new-kindled, 
active, and world-wide emotions, and so brighten into 
steady and constant flame. Let her abjure such poets 
as Cowper, or Byron, or even Wordsworth ; and if she 
must poetize, let her lay her mind to such manly verse 
as Pope's, or to such sound and ringing organry as 
Comus. 

My fire was getting dull, and I thrust in the poker : 



72 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

it started up on the instant into a hundred Httle mgry 
tongues of flame. 

— Just so — thought I — the over-sensitive heart 
once cruelly disturbed, will fling out a score of flaming 
passions, darting here, and darting there, — half-smoke, 
half-flame — love and hate — canker and joy — wild 
in its madness, not knowing whither its sparks are 
flying. Once break roughly upon the afiections, or 
even the fancied affections of such a soul, and you 
breed a tornado of maddened action — a whirlwind 
of fire that hisses, and sends out jets of wild, impul- 
sive combustion, that make the bystanders, — even 
those most friendly — stand aloof, until the storm is 
past. 

But this is not all that the dashing flame of my sea- 
coal suggests. 

How hke a flirt ! — -mused I again, recurring to 

my fii'st thought — so lively, yet uncertain ; so bright, 
yet so flickering ! Your true flirt plays with sparkles ; 
her heart, much as there is of it, spends itself in 
sparkles ; she measures it to sparkle, and habit grows 
into nature, so that anon, it can only sparkle. How 
carefully she cramps it, if the flames show too gi*eat a 
heat; how dexterously she flings its blaze here and 
there ; how coyly she subdues it ; how winningly she 
lights it ! 

All this is the entire reverse of the unpremeditated 



Sea-Coal. 13 

daitings of the soul at which I have been looking ; 
sensibility scorns heart-cui'bings, and heart-teachings; 
sensibility enquires not — how much ? but only — 
where ? 

Your true flirt has a coai-se-grained soul; well 
modulated and well tutored, but there is no fineness 
in it. All its native fineness is made coai-se, by 
coarse efibrts of the will. True feeling is a rustic 
vulgarity, the flirt does not tolerate ; she counts its 
healthiest and most honest manifestation, all sentiment. 
Yet she will play you off a pretty string of sentiment, 
which she has gathered from the poets ; she adjusts 
it prettily as a Gobelin weaver adjusts the colors in 
his tajns. She shades it off" delightfully ; there are 
no bold contrasts, but a most artistic mellow of 
nuances. 

She smiles hke a wizard, and jingles it with a 
laugh, such as tolled the poor home-bound Ulysses 
to the Circean bower. She has a cast of the head, 
apt and artful as the most dexterous cast of the best 
trout-killing rod. Her words sparkle, and flow hur- 
riedly, and with the prettiest doubleness of meaning. 
Naturalness she copies, and she scorns. She accuses 
herself of a single expression or regard, which nature 
Drompts. She prides hei*self on her schooHng. She 
measures her wit by the triumphs of her art ; she 

chuckles over her own falsity to herself. And if by 
4 



74 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

cliance her soul — such germ as !s left of it — betraya 
her into untoward confidence, she condemns hei-self, as 
if she had committed crime. 

She is always gay, because she has no depth of 
feeling to be stirred. The brook that inns shallow 
over hard pebbly bottom always rustles. She is light- 
hearted, because her heart floats in sparkles — hke my 
sea-coal fire. She counts on marriage, not as the great 
absorbent of a heart's-love, and hfe, but as a happy, 
feasible, and orderly conventionality, to be played with, 
and kept at distance, and finally to be accepted as a 
cover for the faint and tawdry sparkles of an old 
and cherished heartlessness. 

She will not pine under any regi-ets, because she 
has no appreciation of any loss : she will not chafe at 
indifiference, because it is her art; she will not bo 
worried with jealousies, because she is ignorant of 
love. With no conception of the soul in its strength 
an^ fulness, she sees no lack of its demands. A thrill, 
she does not know ; a passion, she cannot imagine ; 
joy is a name ; grief is another ; and Life with its 
crowding scenes of love, and bitterness, is a play upon 
the stage. 

I think it is Madame Dudevant who says, in some- 
thing like the same connection : — Les hihoux ne 
connaissent pas le chemin j^cir oil les aigles voni au 
soleil. 



Sea-Coal. 75 

Poor Ned i — mused I, looking at the play of 

ilie fire — was a victim and a conqueror. He was a 
man of a full, strong nature — not a little impulsive — 
with action too full of earnestness for most of men to 
see its drift. He had known little of what is called 
the world ; he was fresh in feeling and high of hope ; 
he had been encircled always by friends who loved 
him, and who, may be, flattered him. Scarce had he 
entered upon the tangled hfe of the city, before he met 
with a sparkling face and an airy step, that stirred 
something in poor Ned, that he had never felt before. 
With him, to feel was to act. He was not one to be 
despised ; for notwithstanding he wore a country air, 
and the awkwardness of a man who has yet the hien- 
seance of social life before him, he had the soul, the 
courage, and the talent of a strong man. Little gifted 
in the knowledge of face-play, he easily mistook those 
coy manoeuvres of a sparkling heart, for something 
kindred to his own true emotions. 

She was proud of the attentions of a man who 
carried a mind in his brain ; and flattered poor Ned 
almost into servility. Ned had no friends to counsel 
him ; or if he had them, his impulses would have 
Winded him. Never was dodger more artful at the 
Olympic Games than the Peggy of Ned's heart- affec- 
tion. He was charmed, beguiled, entranced. 

When Ned spoke of love, she staved it off with 



76 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

tlie prettiest of sly looks that only bewildered liim the 
more. A charming creature to be sure; coy as a 
dove! 

So he went on, poor fool, until one day — he told me 
of it with the blood mounting to his temples, and his 
eye shooting flame — he suffered his feelings to run out 
in passionate avowal, — entreaty, — everything. She 
gave a pleasant, noisy laugh, and manifested — such 
pretty surprise ! 

lie was looking for the intense glow of passion ; and 
lo, there was nothing but the shifting sparkle of a sea- 
coal flame. 

I wrote him a letter of condolence — for I was his 
senior by a year ; — " My dear fellow," said I, " diet 
yourself; you can find greens at the up-town market; 
eat a little fish with your dinner ; abstain from heat- 
ing drinks : don't put too much butter to your cauli- 
flower ; read one of Jeremy Taylor's sermons, and 
translate all the quotations at sight ; run carefully over 
that exquisite picture of Geo. Dandin in your Moliere, 
and my word for it, in a week you will be a sound 
man." 

He was too angry to reply ; but eighteen months 
thereafter I got a thick, three-sheeted letter, with a 
dove upon the seal, telling me that he was as happy 
as a king : he said he had married a good-hearted, 
domestic, loving wife, who was as lovely as a June 



Sea-Coal. 77 

day, and that their baby, not three months old, was as 
bright as a spot of June day sunshine on the grass. 

— What a tender, dehcate, loving wife — mused I — 
such, flashing, flaming flirt must in the end make ; — the 
2:)rostitute of fashion ; the bauble of fifty hearts idle as 
hers ; the shifting make-piece of a stage scene ; the 
actress, now in peasant, and now in princely petticoats ! 
IIow it would cheer an honest soul to call her — his ! 
What a culmination of his heart-hfe; what a rich 
dream-laud to be realized ! 

^Bah ! and I thrust the poker into the clotted 

mass of fading coal — ^just such, and so worthless is the 
used heart of a city flirt ; just so the incessant sparkle 
of her life, and frittering passions, fuses all that is 
sound and combustible, into black, sooty, shapeless 
residuum. 

When I marry a flirt, I will buy second-hand clothes 
of the Jews. 

• — Still — mused I — as the flame danced again — 
there is a distinction between coquetry and flirtation. 

A coquette sparkles, but it is more the sparkle of a 
harmless and pretty vanity, than of calculation. It is 
the play of humoi-s in the blood, and not the play of 
purpose at the heart. It will flicker around a true soul 
like the blaize around an oiiielette au rhwn, leaving the 
kernel sounder and warmer. 

Coquetry, with all its pranks and teasings, makes the 



78 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

spice to your dinner — the mulled wine to your suppei. 
It will drive you to desperation, only to bring you back 
hotter to the fray. Who would boast a victory that 
cost no strategy, and no careful disposition of the forces ? 
Who would bulletin such success as my Uncle Toby's, 
in a back-garden, with only the Corporal Trim for 
assailant ? But let a man be very sure that the city is 
worth the siege ! 

Coquetry whets the appetite ; flirtation depraves it. 
Coquetry is the thorn that guards the rose — easily 
trimmed oflf when once plucked. Flirtation is hke the 
slime on water-plants, making them hard to handle, 
and when caught, only to be cherished in shmy 
waters. 

And so, with my eye clinging to the flickering 
blaze, I see in my reverie, a bright one dancing before 
me, with sparkhng, coquettish smile, teasing me with 
the prettiest graces in the world ; — and I grow 
maddened between hope and fear, and still watch with 
ray whole soul in my eyes ; and see her features by 
and by relax to pity, as a gleam of sensibility comes 
steahng over her spirit; — and then to a kindly, feeling" 
regard! presently she approaches, — a coy and doubt- 
ful approach — and throws back the ringlets that he 
over her cheek, and lays her hand — a little bit of 
white hand — timidly upon my sti'ong fingei-s, — and 
tui'ns her head daintily to one side, — and looks up lu 



Sea -Coal. 79 

my eyes, is tliey rest on the playing blaze ; and my 
fingers close fast and passionately over that httle hand, 
hke a swift night-cloud shrouding the pale tips of Dian ; 
— and my eyes draw nearer and nearer to those blue, 
laughing, pit}nng, teasing eyes, and my arm clasps 
round that shadowy form, — and my hps feel a warm 

breath — growing wai-mer and warmer "^ 

Just here the maid comes in, and thi-ows upon the 
fire a Dan-ful of Anthracite, and my sparkling sea-coal 
reverie is ended. 



II. 

Anthracite. 

IT does not burn freely, so I put on the blower. 
Quaint and good-natured Xavier de Maistre* 
would have made, I dare say, a pretty epilogue about 
a sheet-iron blower ; but I cannot. 

I try to bnng back the image that belonged to the 
Hngering bituminous flame, but with my eyes on that 
dark blower, — how can I ? 

It is the black curtain of destiny which drops down 
before our brightest dreams. How often the phan- 
toms of joy regale us, and dance before us — golden- 
winged, angel-faced, heart-warming, and make an 
Elysium in which the dreaming soul bathes, and feels 
translated to another existence ; and then — sudden as 

* Voyage autour de Ma Chambre. 



Anthracite. 81 

night, or a cloud— a word, a stej:*, a thought, a mein- 
oiy will chase them away, like scared deer vacishino- 
over a gray horizon of moor-land ! 

I know not justly, if it be a weakness or a sin to 
create these phantoms that we love, and to group them 
into a paradise — soul-created. But if it is a sin, it is 
a sweet and enchanting sin ; and if it is a weakness, 
it is a strong and stirring weakness. If this heart is 
sick of the falsities that meet it at every hand, and is 
eager to spend that power which nature has ribbed it 
with, on some object worthy of its fulness and depth, — 
shall it not feel a rich relief, — nay more, an exercise 
in keeping with its end, if it flow out — strong as a 
tempest, wild as a rushing river, upon those ideal 
creations, which imagination invents, and which are 
tempered by our best sense of beauty, purity, and 
grace ? 

Useless, do you say ? Aye, it is as useless as 



the pleasure of looking hour upon hour, over bright 
landscapes ; it is as useless as the rapt enjoyment of 
listening with heart full and eyes brimming, to such 
music as the Miserere at Rome ; it is as useless as the 
ecstacy of kindling your soul into fervor and love, and 
madness, over pages that reek with genius. 

There are indeed base-moulded souls who know 
nothing of this ; they laugh ; they sneer ; they even 
affect to pity. Just so the Hutis under the avenging 



82 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

Attila, who had been iised to foul cookery and steaks 
stewed under their saddles, laughed brutally at the 
spiced banquets of an Apicius ! 

No, this phantom-making is no sin ; or if it be, 

it is sinning with a soul so full, so earnest, that it can 
cry to Heaven cheerily, and sure of a gracious hearing 
— peccavi — miser icorde ! 

But my fire is in a glow, a pleasant glow, throwing a 
tranquil, steady light to the farthest corner of my gar- 
ret. How unlike it is, to the flashing play of the sea- 
coal ! — unlike as an unsteady, uncertain-working heart 
to the true and earnest constancy of one cheerful and 
right. 

After all, thought I, give me such a heart ; not bent 
on vanities, not blazing too sharp with sensibihty, not 
throwing out coquettish jets of flame, not wavering, 
and meaningless with pretended warmth, but open, 
glowing and strong. Its dark shades and angles it 
may have ; for what is a soul worth that does not take 
a slaty tinge from those griefs that chill the blood? 
Yet still the fire is gleaming ; you see it in the cre- 
vices ; and anon it will give radiance to the whole 
mass. 

It hurts the eyes, this fire ; and I draw up a 

«creen painted over with rough, but graceful figures. 

The true heart wears always the veil of modesty — 
(not of prudery, which is a dingy, iron, repulsive 



Anthracite. 83 

screen.) It will not albw itself to be lool^ed on too 
near — it might scorcli ; but tbrougb the veil you feel 
the warmth; and through the pretty figures that 
modesty will robe itself in, you can see all the while 
the golden outlines, and by that token, you Jcnow that 
it IS gloAving and burnirg with a pure and steady 
flame. 

With such a heart the mind fuses naturally — a 
holy and heated fusion; they work together like 
twins-born. With such a heart, as Raphael says to 
Adam, 

Love hath his seat 
In reason, and is judicious- 

But let me distinguish this heart from your clay- 
cold, lukewarm, half-hearted soul ; — considerate, because 
ignorant; judicious, because possessed of no latent 
fires that need a curb ; prudish, because with no warm 
blood to tempt. This sort of soul may pass scatheless 
through the fiery furnace of life ; strong, only in its 
weakness ; pure, because of its failings ; and good, 
only by negation. It may triumph over love, and sin, 
and death ; but it will be a triumph of the beast, which 
has neither passions to s -bdue, or energy to attack, or 
hope to quench, 



84 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

Let us come back to the steady and earnest heart, 
glowing like my anthracite coal. 

I fancy I see such a one now ; — the eye is deep 
and reaches back to the spirit ; it is not the trading 
eye, weighing your pm'se ; it is not the worldly eye, 
weighing position ; it is not the beastly eye, weighing 
your appearance ; it is the heart's eye, weighing your 
soul ! 

It is full of deep, tender, and earnest feeling. It 
is an eye, which looked on once, you long to look on 
again ; it is an eye which will haunt your dreams, — an 
eye which will give a color, in spite of you, to all 
your reveries. It is an eye which lies before you in 
your future, like a star in the mai-iner's heaven ; by 
it, unconsciously, and from force of deep soul-habit, 
you take all your observations. It is meek and quiet ; 
but it is full, as a spring that gushes in flood ; an 
Aphrodite and a Mercury — a Vaucluse and a CH- 
turanus. 

The face is an angel face ; no matter for curious 
lines of beauty ; no matter for popular talk of pretti 
ness ; no matter for its angles, or its proportions : 
no matter for its color or its form — the soul is there, 
illuminating every feature, burnishing every point 
hallowing every surface. It tells of honesty, sincerity, 
a^i i worth ; it tells of truth ^nd \drtue ; — and you clasp 



Antpiracits. 86 

the image to youi* heart, as the received ideal of your 
fondest dreams. 

The figm-e may be this or that, it may be tall or 
short, it mattere nothing, — the heart is there. The 
talk may be soft or low, serious or piquant — a free and 
honest soul is warming and softening it all. As you 
speak, it speafe back again ; as you think, it thinks 
again — (not in conjunction, but in the same sign of the 
Zodiac ;) as you love, it loves in return. 

— — It is the heart for a sister, and happy is the 
man who can claim such ! The warmth that lies 
in it is not only generous, but religious, genial, devo- 
tional, tender, self-sacrificing, and looking heavenward. 

A man without some sort of religion, is at best a 
poor reprobate, the foot-ball of destiny, with no tie 
hnking him to infinity, and the wondrous eternity that 
is begun with him ; but a woman without it, is even 
worse — a flame without heat, a rainbow without color, 
a flower without perfume ! 

A man may in some sort tie his frail hopes and 
honors, with weak, shifting gi-ound-tackle to business, 
or to the world ; but a woman without that anchor 
which they call Faith, is adrift, and a-wreck ! A man 
may clumsily contrive a kind of moral responsibility, 
out of his relations to mankind ; but a woman in her 
comparatively isolated sphere, where aflfection and not 
purpose is the controlhng motive, can find no basis 



86 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

for any system of right action, but that of spiritual 
faith. A man may craze his thought and his hrain, 
to trustfulness in such poor harborage as Fame and 
Reputation may stretch before him ; but a woman 
— where can she put her hope in storms, if not in 
Heaven ? 

And that sweet trustfulness — that abiding love — 
that enduring hope, mellowing every page and scene 
of life, lighting them with pleasantest radiance, when 
the world-storms break like an army with smoking 
cannon — what can bestow it all, but a holy soul-tie to 
what is above the storms, and to what is stronger than 
an army with cannon ? Who that has enjoyed the 
counsel and the love of a Christian mother, but will 
echo the thought with energy, and hallow it with a 
tear ? et moi, je 2)leurs ! 

My fire is now a mass of red-hot coal. The whole 
atmosphere of my room is warm. The heart that with 
its glow can light up, and warm a garret with loose 
casements and shattered roof, is capable of the best 
love — domestic love. I draw farther off, and the 
images upon the screen change. The warmth, the 
hour, the quiet, create a home feehng ; and that feel- 
ing, quick as lightning, has stolen from the world of 
fancy (a Promethean theft,) a home object, about which 
ray musings go on to drape themselves in luxurious 
reverie. 



Anthracite. 8*7 



-There she sits, by the corner of the fire, in a 



neat home dress, of sober, yet most adorning color. 
A httle bit of lace ruffle is gathered about the neck, by 
a blue ribbon ; and the ends of the ribbon are crossed 
under the dimpling chin, and are fastened neatly by a 
simple, unpretending brooch — your gift. The arm, a 
pretty taper arm, hes over the carved elbow of the 
oaken chair ; the hand, white and dehcate, sustains a 
little home volume that haniys from her finsfei-s. The 
forefinger is between the leaves, and the others lie in 
rehef upon the dark embossed cover. She repeats in a 
silver voice, a line that has attracted her fancy ; and 
you hsten — or at any rate, you seem to listen — with 
your eyes now on the lips, now on the forehead, and 
now on the finger, where glittei-s like a star, the mar- 
riage ring — httle gold band, at which she does not 
chafe, that tells you, — she is yours ! 

Weak testimonial, if that were all that told 

it ! The eye, the voice, the look, the heart, tells you 
stronger and better, that she is yours. And a feeling 
within, where it Les you know not, and whence it 
comes you know not, but sweeping over heart and 
brain, like a fire-flood, tells you too, that you are hers I 
L're.nediably bound as Massinger's Hortensio : 

I am subject to another's will, and can 
Nor speak, nor do, without permission from her ! 



88 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

Tlie fire is warm as ever ; what length of heat in this 
hard burning anthracite ! It has scarce sunk yet to the 
second bar of the grate, though the clock upon the 
church-tower has tolled eleven. 

— Aye, — mused I, gaily — such a heart does not grow 
faint, it does not spend itself in idle puflfe of blaze, it 
does not become chilly with the passing years ; but it 
gains and grows in strength, and heat, until the fire of 
life is covered over with the ashes of death. Strong 
or hot as it may be at the first, it loses nothing. It 
may not indeed, as time advances, throw out, like the 
coal-fire, when new-lit, jets of blue sparkling flame ; it 
may not continue to bubble, and gush like a foun- 
tain at its source, but it will become n strong rivei* of 
flowing charities. 

Chtumnus breaks fi*om under the Tuscan mountains, 
almost a flood ; on a glorious sj^ring day I leaned 
down and tasted the water, as it boiled from its 
sources ; — the httle temple of white marble, — the moun- 
tain sides gray with olive orchards, — the white streak 
of road, — the tall poplars of the river margin were 
glistening in the bright Itahan sunlight, around me. 
Later, I saw it when it had become a river, — still clear 
and strong, flowing serenely between its prairie banks, 
on which the white cattle of the valley browsed ; and 
still farther down, I welcomed it, where it joins the 
Arno, — flowing slowly under wooded shores, skirting 



A N T H R &. C I T E . 89 

the fair Florence, and tlie bounteous fields of the 
bright Cascino; — gathering strength and volume, till 
between Pisa and Leghorn, — in sight of the wondrous 
Leaning Tower, and the ship-masts of the Tuscan 
port, it gave its waters to its life's grave^ — the sea. 

The recollection blended sweetly now with my 
musings, over my garret grate, and offered a flowing 
image, to bear along upon its bosom the affections that 
were grouping in my Reverie. 

It is a strange force of the mind and of the fancy, 
that can set the objects which are closest to the heart 
far down the lapse of time. Even now, as the fire 
fades slightly, and sinks slowly towards the bar, which 
is the dial of my hours, I seem to see that image of 
love which has played about the fire- glow of my grate 
— yeai's hence. It still covers the same warm, trust- 
ful, religious heart. Trials have tried it; aflSictions 
have weighed upon it; danger has scared it; and 
death is coming near to subdue it ; but still it is the 
same. 

The fingers are thinner ; the face has fines of care, 
and sorrow, crossing each other in a web-work, that 
makes the golden tissue of humanity. But the heart is 
fond, and steady ; it is the same dear heart, the same 
self-sacrificing heart, warraii g, like a fire, all around it. 
Aflfliction has tampered joy ; and joy adorned affliction. 
Life and all its troubles have become distilled into an 



90 K EYERIES OF A. BACHELOR. 

holy incense, rising ever from your fii'eside, — an offering 
to your household gods. 

Your dreams of reputation, your swift determination, 
your impulsive pride, your deep uttered vows to 
win a name, ^ave all sobered into affection — have all 
blended into that glow of feeUng, which finds its centre, 
and hope, and joy in Home. From my soul I pity 
him whose soul does not leap at the mere utterance of 
that name. 

A home ! — it is the bright, blessed, adorable phan- 
tom which sits highest on the sunny horizon that 
girdeth Life ! When shall it be reached ? When shall 
it cease to be a glittering day-dream, and become fully 
and fairly youi*s ? 

It is not the house, though that may have its 
charms ; nor the fields carefully tilled, and streaked 
with your own foot-paths ; — nor the trees, though 
then* shadow be to you like that of a gi'eat rock in a 
weary land ; — nor yet is it the fireside, with its sweet 
blaze-play; — nor the pictures which tell of loved 
ones, nor the cherished books, — but more far than all 
these — ^it is the Presence. The Lares of your wor- 
ship are there ; the altar of yom- confidence there ; the 
end of your worldly faith is there ; and adorning it all, 
and sending your blood in passionate flow, is the 
ecstasy of the conviction, that there at least you are 
beloved* that there you are understood; that there 



Anthracite. 91 

youi errors will meet ever with gentlest forgiveness ; 
that there your troubles will be smiled away ; that 
there you may unburden your soul, feailess of harsh, 
unsympathizing ears; and that there you may be 
entirely and joyfully — yourself! 

There may be those of coarse mould — and I have 
seen such even in the disguise of women — who will 
reckon these feelings puhng sentiment. God pity 
them ! — as they have need of pity. 

That image by the fireside, calm, loving, joyful, 

is there still : it goes not, however my spirit tosses, 
because my wish, and every will, keep it there, uner- 
ring. 

The fire shows through the screen, yellow and warm, 
as a harvest sun. It is in its best age, and that age is 
ripeness. 

A ripe heart! — now I know what Wordsworth 
meant, when he said, 

The good die first, 
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust, 
Burn to the socket ! 

The town clock is strikino^ midniojht. The cold of 
the night- wind is urging its way in at the door and 
window-crevice ; the fire has sunk almost to the third 
bar. of tbs grate. Still my dream tires not, but wraps 
fondly round that image, — now in the far off, chilling 



92 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

mists of age, growing sainted. Love has blended 
into reverence ; passion has subsided into joyous con- 
tent. 

And v/hat if age comes, said I, in a new flush 

of excitation, — what else proves the wine ? What 
else gives inner strength, and knowledge, and a steady 
pilot-hand, to steer your boat out boldly upon that 
shoreless sea, where the river of life is running? 
Let the white ashes gather; let the silver hair he, 
where lay the auburn ; let the eye gleam farther back, 
and dimmer ; it is but retreating toward the pure 
sky-depths, an usher to the land where you will follow 
after. 

It is quite cold, and I take away the screen alto- 
gether ; there is a little glow yet, but presently the 
coal shps down below the third bar, with a rumbling 
sound, — like that of coarse gravel fiilling into a new- 
dug grave. 

She is gone ! 

Well, the heart has burned fairly, evenly, generously, 
while there was mortahty to kindle it ; eternity will 
surely kindle it better. 

^Tears indeed ; but they are teare of thanksgiv- 
ing, of resignation, and of hope ! 

And the eyes, full of those tears, which ministering 
angels bestow, climb with quick vision, upon the an- 



A N T U R A C I T E . 03 

gelic ladder, and open upon the futurity where she htis 
entered, and upon the country, which she enjoys. 

It is midnight, and the sounds of hfe are dead. 

You are in the death chamber of hfe ; but you are 
also in the death chamber of care. The world seems 
sliding backward ; and hope and you are sliding for- 
ward. The clouds, the agonies, the vain expectancies, 
the brao-o-art noise, the fears, now vanish behind the 
curtain of the Past, and of the Night. They roll from 
your soul hke a load. 

In the dimness of what seems the ending Present, 
you reach out your prayerful hands toward that bound- 
less Future, where God's eye lifts over the horizon, like 
sunrise on the ocean. Do you recognize it as an 
earnest of something better ? Aye, if the heart Inis 
been pure, and steady, — burning like my fire — it has 
learned it without seeming to learn. Faith has grown 
upon it, as the blossom grows upon the bud, or the 
flower upon the slow-hfting stalk. 

Cares cannot come into the dream-land where I live. 
They sink with the dying street noise, and vanish with 
the embers of my fii-e. Even Ambition, with its hot 
and shifting flame, is all gone out. The heart in the 
dimness of the fading fire-glow is all itself. The 
memory of what good things have come over it in the 
troubled youth-life, bear it up.; and hope and feith 
bear it on. There is no extravagant pulse-glow ; there 



04 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

is no mad fever of the brain ; but only the soul, forget- 
ting — for once — all, save its destinies, and its capacities 
for good. And it mounts higher and higher on these 
wings of thought ; and hopa burns stronger and 
stronger out of the ashes of decaying life, until the 
sharp edge of the grave seems but a foot-scraper at the 
wicket of Elysium ! 

But what is paper ; and what are words ? Vain 
things ! The soul leaves them behind ; the pen 
staggers like a starveling cripple; and your heart is 
leaving it, a whole length of the hfe-course behind. 
The soul's mortal longings, — its poor baffled hopes, 
are dim now in the hofht of those infinite lono-ino-s, 
which spread over it, soft and holy as day-dawn. 
Eternity has stretched a corner of its mantle toward 
you, and the breath of its waving fringe is like a gale 
of Araby. 

A little rumbling, and a last plunge of the cindera 
within my grate, startled me, and dragged back ray 
fancy from my flower chase, beyond the Phlegethon, to 
the white ashes, that were now thick all over the dark- 
ened coals. 

— And this — mused I — is only a bachelor-dream 
about a pure, and loving heart ! And to-morrow comes 

cankerous life again : is it wished for ? Or if not 

wished for, is the not wishing, wicked ? 

Will dreams satisfy, reach high as they can ? Are 



Anthracite. 9{J 

we not after all poot grovelling mortals, tied to earth, 
and to each other ; are there not sympathies, and 
hopes, and affections which can only find their issue, 
and blessing, in fellow absorption ? Does not the 
heart, steady, and pure as it may be, and mounting on 
soul flights often as it dare, want a human sympathy, 
perfectly indulged, to make it healthful ? Is there not 
a fount of love for this world, as there is a fount of 
love for the other ? Is there not a certain store 
of tenderness, cooped in this heart, which must, and 
will be lavished, before the end comes ? Does it not 
plead with the judgment, and make issue with pru- 
dence, year after year ? Does it not dog your steps all 
through your social pilgrimage, setting up its claims in 
forms fresh, and odorous as new-blown heath bells, 
saying, — come away from the heartless, the factitious, 
the vain, and measure your heart not by its constraints, 
but by its fulness, and by its depth ? — let it run, and be 
joyous ! 

Is there no demon that comes to your harsh night- 
dreams, like a taunting fiend, whispering — be satisfied ; 
keep your heart from running over ; bridle those affec- 
tions ; there is nothing worth loving ? 

Does not some sweet being hover over your spirit of 
reverie like a beckoning angel, crowned with halo, say- 
ing — hope on, hope ever ; the heart and I are kindred 



90 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

our mission will be fulfilled ; nature shall accomplisb 
its purpose ; the soul shall have its Paradise ? 

T threw myself upon my bed: and as my 

thoughts ran over the definite, sharp business of the 
morrow, my Reverie, and its glowing images, that 
made my heart bound, swept away, like those fleecy 
rain clouds of August, on which the sun paints rain- 
bows — driving Southward, by a cool, rising wind from 
the North. 

1 wonder, — thought I, as I dropped asleep, — 

if a married man with his sentiment made actual, is 
after all, as happy as we poor fellows, in our dreams ? 



Sljirit Heucne. 



21 €igar tijne times iligljteJ>, 



OVER HIS CIGAE. 



I DO not believe that there was ever an Aunt 
Tabithy who could abide cigars. My Aunt 
Tabithy hated them with a pecuHar hatred. She was 
not only insensible to the rich flavor of a frcf'h rolling 
volume of smoke, but she could not so much as 
tolerate the sight of the rich russet color of an 
Havana-laoeiled box. It put her out of all conceit 
with Guava jelly, to find it advertised in the same 
tongue, and \\dth the same Cuban coarseness of 
design. 

She could see no good in a cigar. 
" But by yom- leave, my aunt," said I to her, the 
Oi-her morning, — " there is very much that is good in a 
cigar." 



100 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

My aunt who was sweeping, tossed her head, and 
with it, her curls — done up in paper. 

"It is a very excellent matter," continued I, 
puffing. 

" It is dirty," said my aunt. 

" It is clean and sweet," said I ; " and a most 
pleasant soother of disturbed feehngs ; and a capital 

companion ; and a comforter ^" and I stopped to 

puflf. 

" You know it is a filthy abommation," said my aunt, 

— " and you ought to be ," and she stopped to put 

up one of her curls, which with the energy of her gesti- 
culation, had fallen out of its place. 

" It suggests quiet thoughts" — continued I, — " and 
makes a man meditative ; and gives a current to his 
habits of contemplation, — as T can show you," said I, 
warming with the theme. 

My aunt, still fingering her papers, — with the pin m 
her mouth, — gave a most incredulous shrug. 

"Aunt Tabithy" — said I, and gave two or three 
violent, consecutive puffs, — " Aunt Tabithy, I can make 
up such a series of reflections out of my cigar, as would 
do your heart good to listen to ! " 

"About what, pray?" said my aunt, contemptu- 
ously. 

" About love," said I, " which is easy enough 
lighted, but wants constancy to keep it in a glow ; — 



Over his Cigar. 101 

or about matrimony, wliicli has a great deal of fire in 
the beginning, but it is a fire that consumes all that 
feeds the blaze ; — or about life," continued I earnestly, 
— " which at the first is fresh and odorous, but ends 
shortly in a withered cinder, that is fit only for the 
ground." 

My aunt who was forty and unmarried, finished her 
curl with a flip of the fingers, — resumed her hold of the 
broom, and leaned her chin upon one end of it, with an 
expression of some wonder, some curiosity, and a great 
deal of expectation. 

I could have wished my aunt had been a little less 
curious, or that I had been a little less communicative : 
for though it was all honestly said on my part, yet my 
contemplations bore that vague, shadowy, and delicious 
sweetness, that it seemed impossible to put them into 
words, — least of all, at the bidding of an old lady, 
leaning on a broom-handle. 

" Give me time. Aunt Tabithy," — said I, — " a good 
dinner, and after it a good cigar, and I will serve you 
such a sun-shiny sheet of reverie, all twisted out of the 
smoke, as will make your kind old heart ache 1" 

Aunt Tabithy, in utter contempt, either of my men- 
tion of the dinner, or of the smoke, or of the old heart, 
commenced sweeping furiously. 

"If I do not" — continued I, anxious to appease her, 
— " if T do not, Aunt Tabithv, it shall be mv last ci2:a^•• 



102 Reveries or a Bachelor. 

(Aunt Tabithy stopped sweeping) and all my tobacco 
money, (Aunt Tabithy drew near me) shall go to buy 
ribbons for my most respectable, and w^orthy Aunt 
Tabithy ; and a kinder person could not have them ; 
or one," continued I, with a generous puff, " whom 
they would more adorn." 

My Aunt Tabithy gave me a half-playful, — half- 
thankful nudge. 

It was in this way that our bargain was struck ; my 
part of it is already stated. On her part. Aunt Tabithy 
was to allow me, in case of my success, an evening 
cigar unmolested, upon the fi'ont porch, underneath her 
favorite rose-tree. It was concluded, I say, as I sat ; 
the smoke of my cigar rising gracefully around my 
Aunt Tabithy's curls ; — our right hands joined ; — my 
left was holding my cigar, while in hers, was tightly 
grasped — her broom-stick. 

And this Reverie, to make the matter short, is whal 
came of the contract. 



Lighted with a Joal. 

TAKE up a coal with the tongs, and setting t'he- 
end of my cigar against it, puflf — and puff again ; 
but there is no smoke. There is very httle hope of 
hghting from a dead coal ; — no more hope, thought 
I, — -than of kindling one's heart into flame, by con- 
tact with a dead heart. 

To kindle, there must be warmth and life ; and I 
sat for a moment, thinking, — even before I lit my 
cigar, — on the vanity and folly of those poor, pur- 
blind fellows, who go on puffing for half a lifetime, 
against dead coals. It is to be hoped that Heaven, in 
its mercy, has made their senses so obtuse, that tbey 
know not when their souls are in a flame, or when 
thev are dead. I can imagine none but the most 



104 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

moderate satisfaction, in continuing to love, what has 
got no ember of love within it. The Italians have a 
very sensible sort of proverb, — aniare^ e non essere 
amato, e tempo perduto : — to love, and not be loved, is 
time lost. 

I take a kind of rude pleasure in flinging down a 
coal that has no life in it. And it seemed to me, — 
and may Heaven pardon the ill-nature that belongs 
to the thought, — that ther>?. would be much of the 
same kind of satisfaction, in dashing from you a luke- 
warm creature, covered over with the yellow ashes 
of old combustion, that with ever so much attention, 
and the nearest approach of the lips, never shows 
signs of fire. May Heaven forgive me again, but I 
should long to break aw^ay, though the marriage bonds 
held me, and see what hveliness was to be found else- 
where. 

I have seen before now a creeping vine try to grow 
up against a marble wall ; it shoots out its tendrils in 
all directions, seeking for some crevice by which to 
fasten and to climb; — looking now above and now 
below, — twining upon itself, — reaching farther up, 
but after all, finding no good foothold, and falling 
away as if in despair. But nature is not unkind ; 
twining things were made to twine. The longing 
tendrils take new strength in the sunshine, and in the 
showers, and shoot out toward some hospitable trunk. 



Lighted with a Coal. 105 

Tliey fasten easily to the kindly rouglmess of he bark, 
and stretch up, dragging after theni the vine ; ^Yhich 
by and by, from the topmost bough, will nod its blos- 
soms over at the marble wall, that refused it succor, as 
if it said, — stand there in your pride, cold, white wall ! 
we, the tree and I are kindred, it the helper, and I the 
helped ; and bound fast together, we riot in the sun- 
shine, and in gladness. 

The thought of this image made me search for a 
new coal that should have some brightness in it. 
There may be a white ash over it indeed ; as you 
will find tender feelings covered vnth the mask of 
courtesy, or with the veil of fear ; but with a breath it 
all flies off, and exposes the heat, and the glow that 
you are seeking. 

At the first touch, the delicate edo-es of the cio-ar 
crimple, a thin line of smoke rises, — doubtfully for a 
while, and with a coy delay ; but after a hearty respi- 
ration or two, it grows strong, and my cigar is fairly 
lighted. 

That first taste of the new smoke, and of the fra- 
grant leaf is very grateful ; it has a bloom about it, 
that you wish might last. It is like your first love, — 
fresh, genial, and rapturous. Like that, it fills up 
all the craving of your soul; and the light, blue 
\\Teaths of smoke, like the roseate clouds that hang 
around the m.orninof of vour heart life, cut vou off from 



i06 Rev^eries of a Bachelor. 

the chill atmosphere of mere worldly companionship, 
and make a gorgeous fii-mament for your fancy to 
riot in. 

I do not speak now of those later, and manlier pas- 
sions, into which judgment must be thrusting its cold 
tones, and when all the sweet tumult of your heart has 
mellowed into the sober ripeness of affection. But I 
mean that boyish burning, which belongs to every 
poor mortal's lifetime, and which bewilders him with 
the thought that he has reached the highest point of 
human joy, before he has tasted any of that bitter- 
ness, from which alone our highest human joys havo 
spring. I mean the time, when you cut initials with 
your jack-knife on the smooth bark of beech trees; 
and went moping under the long shadows at sunset ; 
and thought Louise the prettiest name in the wide 
world ; and picked flowers to leave at her door ; and 
stole out at night to watch the light in her window ; 
and read such novels as those about Helen Mar, or 
Charlotte, to give some adequate expression to your 
agonized feehngs. 

At such a stage, you are quite certain that you are 
deeply, and madly in love ; you persist in the face of 
heaven, and earth. You would hke to meet the 
individual who dared to doubt it 

You think she has got the tidiest, and jauntiest 



Lighted with a Coal. 107 

little figure that ever was seen. Yoii think back upon 
some time when in your games of forfeit, you gained a 
kiss from those lips ; and it seems as if the kiss was 
hano-ino; on vou yet, and warmino; you all over. And 
then again, it seems so strange that your hps did really 
touch hers ! You half question if it could have been 
actually so, — and how you could have dared ; — and 
you wonder if you would have cournge to do the same 
thing again ? — and upon second thought, are quite sure 
you would, — and snap your fingere at the thought 
of it. 

What sweet little hats she does wear ; and in the 
school room, when the hat is hung up — what curls — 
golden curls, worth a hundred Golcondas ! How 
bravely you study the top hues of the spelling book 
— that your eyes may run over the edge of the cover, 
without the schoolmaster's notice, and feast upon 
her ! 

You half wish that somebody would run away with 
her, as they did with Amanda, in the Children of the 
Abbey ; — and then you might ride up on a splendid 
black horse, and draw a pistol, or blunderbuss, and 
shoot the villains, and carry her back, all in tears, faint- 
ing, and languishing upon your shoulder ; — and have 
her father (who is Judge of the County Court,) take your 
hand in both of his, and make some eloquent remarks. 
A great many such re-captures you run over in your 



108 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

mind, and think how deliglitful it would be to 'pevW 
your life, either by flood, or fire — to cut off your arm, 
or your head, or any such trifle, — for your dear 
Louise. 

You can hardly think of anything more joyous in 
life, than to live with her in some old castle, very far 
away from steamboats, and post-offices, and pick wild 
geraniums for her hair, and read poetry with her, 
under the shade of very dark ivy vines. And you 
would have such a charming boudoir in some corner 
of the old ruin, with a harp in it, and books bound in 
gilt, with cupids on the cover, and such a fairy couch, 
with the curtains hung — as you have seen them hung 
in some illustrated Arabian stories — upon a pair of 
carved doves ! 

And when they laugh at you about it, you turn it 
off perhaps with saying — "it isn't so;" but after- 
ward, in your chamber, or under the tree where you 
have cut her name, you take Heaven to witness, that 
it is so ; and think — what a cold world it is, to be so 
careless about such holy . emotions ! You perfectly 
hate a certain stout boy in a green jacket, who is for- 
ever twitting you, and calling her names ; but when 
some old maiden aunt teases you in her kind, gentle 
way, you bear it very proudly ; and with a feehng as 
if you could bear a great deal more for her sake. 
And when the minister reads off marriage announce- 



Lighted with a Coal. 109 

mente in tlie church, you think how it will sound ono 
of these days, to have your name, and hers, read from 
the pulpit ; — and how the people will all look at you, 
and how prettily she will blush ; and how poor httlo 
Dick, who you know loves her, but is afraid to say so, 
will squirm upon his bench. 

— Heigho ! — mused I, — as the blue smoke rolled up 
around my head, — these first kindlings of the love that 
is in one, are very pleasant ! — but will they last ? 

You love to hsten to the rustle of her dress, as she 
stii*s about the room. It is better music than grown-up 
ladies will make upon all their harpsichords, in the years 
that are to come. But this, thank Heaven, you do not 
know. 

You think you can trace her foot-mark, on your way 
to the school ; — and what a dear little foot-mark it is ! 
And from that single point, if she be out of your sight 
for days, you conjure up the whole image, — the elastic, 
lithe little figure, — the springy step, — the dotted 
muslin so light, and flowing, — the silk kerchief, with its 
most tempting fringe playing upon the clear white 
of her throat, — how you envy that fringe ! And her 
chin is as round as a pc^ch — and the lips — such lips ! 
— and you sigh, and hang your head ; and wonder 
when you shall see her again ! 

You would hke to WTite her a letter ; but then peo- 
ple would talk so coldly about it ; and beside you are 



110 Reveries pf a Bachelor. 

not quite sure you could write such billets as Tliad- 
deus of Warsaw used to write; and anything less 
warm or elegant, would not do at all. You talk about 
this one, or that one, whom they call pretty, in tho 
coolest way in the world ; you see very little of their 
prettiness ; they are good girls to be sure ; and you 
hope they will get good husbands some day or other : 
but it is not a matter that concerns you very much. 
Ihey do not live in your world of romance ; they are 
not the angels of that sky which your heart makes rosy, 
and to which I have hkened the blue wav^s of this 
rolhng smoke. 

You can even joke as you talk of others ; yuu can 
smile, — as you think — very graciously ; you can say 
.aughingly that you are deeply in love with them, and 
think it a most capital joke ; you can touch their hands, 
or steal a kiss from them in your games, most imper- 
turbably ; — they are very dead coals. 

But the hve one is very lively. When you take 
the name on your hp, it seems somehow, to be made 
of different materials from the rest; you cannot half 
so easily separate it into letters ;— write it, indeed, you 
can; for you have had practice, — very much pri- 
vate practice on odd scraps of paper, and on the fly- 
leaves of geographies, and of your natural philosophy. 
You know perfectly well how it looks ; it seems to 
be written, indeed, somewhere behind your eyes ; and 



Lighted with a Coal. Ill 

in such happy position with respect to the optic nerve, 
that you see it all the time, though you are looking in 
an opposite direction ; and so distinctly, that you have 
gi'eat feai-s lest people looking into your eyes, should see 
it too ! 

For all this, it is a far more delicate name to handle 
than most that you know of. Though it is very cool, 
and pleasant on the brain, it is very hot, and difficult 
to manage on the lip. It is not, as your schoolmaster 
would say, — a name, so much as it is an idea ; — not a 
noun, but a verb, — an active, and transitive verb; 
and yet a most irregular verb, wanting the passive 
voice. 

It is something against your schoolmaster's doc- 
trine, to find warmth in the moonlight ; but with that 
soft hand — it is very soft — lying within your arm, 
there is a great deal of warmth, whatever the philoso- 
phers may say, even in pale moonlight. The beams, 
too, breed sympathies, veiy close-running sympathies, 
— not talked about in the chaptere on optics, and alto- 
gether too fine for language. And under their influ- 
ence, you retain the little hand, that you had not dared 
retain so long before ; and her struggle to recover it, — 
if indeed it be a struggle, — is infinitely less than it was ; 
— nay, it is a kind of struggle, not so much against 
you, as between gladness and modesty. It makes you 
as bold as a Hon ; and the feeble hand, like a poor lamb 



112 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

in the lion's cliitcli, is powerless, and very meek ; — and 
failing of escape, it will sue for gentle treatment ; and 
will meet your warm j^romise, with a kind of grateful 
pressure, that is but half acknowledged, by the hand 
that makes it. 

My cigar is burning with wondrous fi'eeness ; and 
from the smoke flash forth images bright and quick 
as lightning — with no thunder, but the thunder of 
the pulse. But will it all last? Damp will deaden 
the fire of a cigar ; and there are hellish damps — alas, 
too many, — that will deaden the early blazing of the 
heart. 

She is pretty, — growing prettier to yom* eye, the 
more you look upon her, and prettier to your ear, the 
more you listen to her. But you wonder wlio the 
tall boy was, who you saw walking with her, two days 
ago ? He was not a bad-looking boy ; on the con- 
trary, you think, — (with a grit of your teeth) — that 
he was infernally handsome ! You look at him very 
shyly, and very closely, when you pass him ; and turn 
to see how he walks, and to measure his shoulders, 
and are quite disgusted with the very modest, and 
gentlemanly way, with which he carries himself. 
You think you would like to have a fisticuff with him, 
if you were only sure of having the best of it. You 
sound the neighborhood coyly, to find out who the 



Lighted with a Coal. I13 

strange boy is ; and are half ashamed of youi-self for 
doing it. 

You gather a magnificent bouquet i send her, and 
tie it with a green ribbon, and love knot, — and get 
a little rose-bud in acknowledgment. That day, you 
pass the tall-boy with a very patronizing look ; and 
wonder if he would not like to have a sail in your 
boat ? 

But by and by, you find the tall boy walking with 
her again; and she looks sideways at hira, and with a 
kind of grown up air, that makes you feel very boylike, 
and humble, and furious. And you look daggers at 
him when you pass ; and touch your cap to her, with 
quite uncommon dignity; — and wonder if she is not 
sorry, and does not feel very badly, to have got such a 
look from you ? 

On some other day, however, you meet her alone ; 
and the sight of her makes your face wear a genial, 
sunny air ; and you talk a little sadly about your 
fears and your jealousies ; she seems a httle sad, and 
a little glad, together ; — and is sorry she has made 
you feel badly, — and you are sorry too. And with 
this pleasant twin sorrow, you are knit together again 
— closer than ever. That one little tear of hers has 
been worth more to you than a thousand smiles. 
Now you love her madly ; you could swear it — swear 
it to her, or swear it to the universe. You even say as 



114 Reveries of a BiciiELOR. 

mucli to some kind old friend at uight-fall ; but your 
mention of lier, is tremulous and joyful, — with u ^ 
of bound in your speech, as if the heart worked too 
quick for the tongue ; and as if the lips were ashamed 
to be passing over such secrets of the soul, to the mere 
sense of hearing. At this stage, you cannot trust yom*- 
self to speak her praises ; or if you venture, the exple- 
tives fly away with your thought, before you can chain 
it into language ; and your speech, at your best en- 
deavor, is but a succession of broken superlatives, that 
you are ashamed of. You strain for language that 
will scald the thought of her ; but hot as you can 
make it, it falls back upon your heated fancy, hke a 
cold shower. 

Ileat so intense as this consumes very fast; and 
the matter it feeds fastest on, is — ^judgment ; and 
with judgment gone, there is room for jealousy to 
creep in. You grow petulant at another sight of that 
tall-boy; and the one tear, which cured your first 
petulance, will not cure it now. You let a little of 
your fever break out in speech — a speech which you 
go home to mourn over. But she knows nothing of 
the mourning, while she knows very much of the 
anger. Vain tears are very apt to breed pride ; and 
when you go again with your petulance, you will find 
your rosy -lipped girl taking her first studies in dig- 
nity. 



Lighted with a Coal. 115 

You will stay away, you say ; — poor fool, you are 
feeding on what your disease loves best ! You wonder 
if she is not sighing for your return, — and if your 
name is not running in her thought — and if tears of 
regret are not moistening those sweet eyes. 

And wondering thus, you stroll moodily, and 

hopefully toAvard her father's home ; you pass the door 
once — twice ; you loiter under the shade of an old 
tree, where you have sometimes bid her adieu ; your 
old fondness is struggling with your pride, and has 
almost made the mastery ; but in the very moment of 
victory, you see yonder your hated rival, and beside 
him, looking very gleeful, and happy — joiw perfidious 
Louise. 

How quick you throw off the marks of your struggle, 
and put on the boldest air of boyhood ; and what 
a dexterous handling to your knife, and a wonderful 
keenness to the edge, as you cut away from the bark of 
the beech tree, all trace of her name ! Still there 
isr a httle silent relenting, and a few tears at night, and 
a httle tremor of the hand, as you tear out — ^the 
next day, — every fly-leaf that beai-s hei* name. But at 
sight of your rival, — looking so jaunty, and in such 
capital spirits, you put on the proud man again. 
You may meet her, but you say nothing of your 
struggles ; — oh no, not one word of that ! — but you 
talk with amazing rapidity about your games, or what 



116 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

not ; and you never — never give her another peep into 
your boyish heart ! 

For a week, you do not see her, — nor for a month, — • 
nor two months — nor three. 

— Puff — puff once more ; there is only a ht^le 
nauseous smoke ; and now — my cigar is gone out 
altogether. I must light again. 



n. 

"With a Wisp of Paper. 

THERE are those who throw away a cigar, when 
once gone out ; they must needs have plenty 
more. But nobody that I ever heard of, keeps a cedar 
box of hearts, labelled at Havanna. Alas, there is but 
one to light ! 

But can a heart once lit, be lighted again ? Autho- 
rity on this point is worth something ; yet it should be 
impartial authority. I should be loth to take in evi- 
dence, for the fact, — however it might tally with my 
hope, the affidavit of some rakish old widower, who 
had cast his weeds, before the grass had started on the 
mound of his affliction ; and I should be as slow to 
take, in way of rebutting testimony, the oath of any 
sweet young girl, just becoming conscious of her heart's 
existence — by its loss. 



ns Reveries of a Baciielox*.. 

Ygyj much, it seems to me, depends upon the 
quality of the fir^ : and I can easily conceive of one 
so pure, so constant, so exhausting, that if it were 
once gone out, whether in the chills of death, or under 
the blasts of pitiless fortune, there would be no re- 
kindling ; — simply because there would be nothing 
left to kindle. And I can imagine too a fire so 
earnest, and so true, that whatever mahce might m-ge, 
or a devilish ingenuity devise, there could no other 
be found, high or low, far or near, which should not 
so contrast with the fii-st, as to make it seem cold as 
ice. 

I remember in an old play of Davenport's, the 
hero is led to doubt his mistress ; he is worked upon 
by slanders, to quit her altogether, — though he has 
loved, and does still love passionately. She bids him 
adieu, with large tears dropping from her eyes, (and I 
lay down my cigar, to recite it aloud, fancying all tho 
while, with a varlet impudence, that some Abstemia is 
repeating it to me) — 

Farewell, Lorenzo, 

Whom my soul doth love ; if you ever marry. 
May you meet a good wife ; so good, that you 
May not suspect her, nor may she be worthy 
Of your suspicion : and if you hear hereafter 
That I am dead, inquire but my last words, 
And you shall know that to the last I loved you. 



"With a Wisp of Pater. 110 

And when you walk forth with youi* second choice, 
Into the pleasant fields, and by chance talk of nie, 
Imagine that you see me thin, and pale. 
Strewing your path with flowers ! 

Poor Abstemia ! Lorenzo never could find 



euch another, — there never could be sucb another, foi 
Buch Lorenzo. 

To blaze anew, it is essential that the old fire be 
utterly gone ; and can any truly-hghted soul ever grow 
cold, except the grave cover it ? The poets all say no : 
Othello, had he lived a thousand years, would not have 
loved again ; — nor Desdemona, — nor Andromache, — 
nor Medea, — nor Ulysses, — nor Hamlet. But in the 
cool wreaths of the pleasant smoke, let us see what 
truth is in the poets. 

— What is love, — mused I, — at the first, but a 
mere fancy? There is a prettiness, that your soul 
cleaves to, as your eye to a pleasant flower, or your 
ear to a soft melody. Presently, admiration comes 
in, as a sort of balance-wheel for the eccentric revo- 
lutions of your foncy ; and your admiration is touched 
off with such neat quahty as respect. Too much of 
this indeed, they say, deadens the fancy ; and so re- 
tards the action of the heart machinery. But with a 
proper modicum to serve as a stock, devotion is 
grafted in; and then, by an agreef.ble and confused 



120 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

mingling, all these qualities, and affections of the 
sonl, become transfused into that vital feeling, called 
Love. 

Your heart seems to have gone over to another and 
better counterpart of your humanity ; what is left of 
you, seems the mere husk of some kernel that has been 
stolen. It is not an emotion of yours, which is making 
very easy voyages towards another soul, — that may 
be shortened, or lengthened, at will ; but it is a pas- 
sion, that is only yoiu's, because it is there ; the more 
it lodges there, the more keenly you feel it to be 
yours. 

The qualities that feed this passion, may indeed be- 
long to you ; but they never gave birth to such an one 
before, simply because there was no place in which it 
could grow. N'ature is very provident in these mat- 
ters. The chrysalis does not burst, until there is a 
wing to help the gauze-Hy upward. The shell does not 
break, until the bird can breathe ; nor does the swal- 
low quit its nest, until its wings are tipped with tho 
airy oars. 

This passion of love is strong, just in proportion as 
the atmosphere it finds, is tender of its hfe. Let that 
atmosphere change into too great coldness, and the 
passion becomes a wreck, — not yours, because it is 
not worth your having ; — nor vital, because it has lost 
the soil where it grew. But is it not laying the re- 



With a Wisp of Paper. 121 

proacli in a high quarter, to say that those qualities of 
the heart which begot this passion, are exhausted, and 
will not thenceforth genninate through all of your life- 
time? 

Take away the worm-eaten frame from your 

arbor plant, and the wi-enched arms of the despoiled 
climber will not at the first, touch any new trellis ; they 
cannot in a day, change the habit of a year. But let 
the new support stand firmly, and the needy tendrils 
will presently lay hold upon the stranger ! and your 
plant -will regain its pride and pomp ; — cherishing 
perhaps in its bent figure, a memento of the Old ; but 
in its more earnest, and abounding hfe, mindful only of 
its sweet dependance on the New. 

Let the Poets say what they will, these affections 
of oui-s ai'e not blind, stupid creatures, to starve under 
polar snows, when the very breezes of Heaven are the 
appointed messengei-s to guide them toward warmth 
and sunshine! 

And with a little suddenness of manner, I tear 

off a wisp of papei', and holding it in the blaze of my 
lamp, re-Hght my cigar. It does not burn so easily 
perhaps as at first : — it wants warming, before it will 
catch ; but presently, it is in a broad, full glow, that 
throws light into the corners of my room. 

^Just so, — thought I, — the love of youth, 

which succeeds the ci-ackling blaze of boyhood, 
6 



122 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

makes a broader flame, tlic ugh it may not be so easily 
kindled. A mere dainty stej:), or a curling lock, or a 
soft blue eye are not enough ; but in her, who has 
quickened the new blaze, there is a blending of all 
these, with a certain sweetness of soul, that finds 
expression in whatever feature cr motion you look 
upon. Her charms steal over you gently, and almost 
imperceptibly. You think that she is a pleasant 
companion — nothing more : and you find the opinion 
strongly confirmed day by day; — so well confirmed, 
indeed, that you begin to wonder — why it is, that she 
is such a delightful companion? It cannot be her 
eye, for you have seen eyes almost as pretty as 
Nelly's; nor can it be her mouth, though Nelly's 
mouth is certainly very sweet. And you keep study- 
ing what on earth it can be that makes yon so earnest 
to be near her, or to listen to her voice. The study 
is pleasant. You do not know any study that is 
more so ; or which ycai accomplish with less mental 
fatigue. 

Upon a sudden, some une day, when the air is 
balmy, and the recollection of Nelly's voice and 
manner, more balmy still, you wonder — if you are 
in love? When a man has such a wonder, he is 
either very near love, or he is very far away from it ; 
it is a wonder, that is either suggested by his hope, 



With a Wisp of Paper. 123 

Di* by that entanglement of feeling which blunts all his 
perceptions. 

But if not in love, you have at least a strong fancy, 
— so strong, that you tell your friends carelessly, that 
she is a nice girl, — nay, a beautiful girl ; and if your 
education has been bad, you strengthen the epithet on 
your own tongue, with a very wicked expletive : — of 
which the mildest form would be — " deuced fine girl !" 
Presently, however, you get beyond this ; and your 
companionship, and your wonder, relapse into a con- 
stant, quiet habit of unmistakeable love : — not im- 
pulsive, quick, and fiery, like the fii'st ; but mature 
and calm. It is as if it were born with your soul, and 
the recognition of it was rather an old remembrance, 
than a fresh passion. It does not seek to gratify its 
exuberance, and force, with such relief as night-sere- 
nades, or any Jacques-hke meditations in the forest; 
but it is a quiet, still joy, that floats on yom* hope, into 
the years to come, — making the prospect all sunny and 
joyful. 

It is a kind of oil and balm for whatever was stormy, 
or harmful : it gives a permanence to the smile of ex- 
istence. It does not make the sea of your life turbu- 
lent with high emotions, as if a strong wind were blow- 
ing ; — but it LS as if an Aphi-odite had broken on the 
surface, and the ripples were spreading with a sweet, 



124 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

low sound, and widening far out to tlie very shores of 
time. 

There is no need now, as with the boy, to bolster up 
your feehngs with extravagant vcws: even should you 
try this in her presence, the words are lacking to put 
such vows in. So soon as you reach them, they fail 
you : and the oath only quivers on the lip, or tells its 
story by a pressure of the fingers. You wear a 
brusque, pleasant au' with your acquaintances, and 
hint — with a sly look — at possible changes in your cir- 
cumstances. Of an evening, you are kind to the most 
unattractive of the wall-flowers, — if only your Nelly is 
away ; and you have a sudden charity for street beg- 
gars, with pale children. You catch yourself taking a 
step in one of the new Polkas, upon a country walk : 
and wonder immensely at the number of bright days 
which succeed each other, without leaving a single 
stormy gap, for your old melancholy moods. Even the 
chambermaids at your hotel, never did theu- duty one 
half so well ; and as for your man Tom, he is become a 
perfect -pattern of a fellow. 

My cigar is in a fine glow ; but it has gone out once, 
and it may go out again. 

^You begin to talk of mannage ; but some 

obstinate Papa, or guardian uncle thmks that it will 
never do ; — that it is quite too soon, or that Nelly is 
a mere girl. Or some of your wild oats, — quite 



With a Wisp of Paper. 125 

forgotten by youi'self, — shoot up on the vision of a 
staid Mamma, and throw a ^'ery damp shadow on 
your character. Or the old lady has an ambition of 
another sort, which you, a simple, earnest, plodding, 
bachelor, can never gratify ; — being of only passable 
appearance, and unschooled in the fashions of the 
world, you will be eternally rubbing the elbows of tho 
old lady's pride. 

All this will be strangely afflictive to one who has 
been hviug for quite a number of weeks, or months, 
in a pleasant dream-land, where there were no five 
per cents, or reputations, but only a very full, .<nd 
delirious flow of feeling. What care you for any 
position, except a position near the being that you 
love ? What wealth do you prize, except a wealth of 
heart, that shall never know diminution ; — or for 
reputation, except that of truth, and of honor ? How 
hard it would break upon these pleasant idealities, to 
have a weazen-faced old guardian, set his arm in 
yours, and tell you how tenderly he has at heart the 
happiness of his niece ; — and reason with you about 
your very small, and sparse dividends, and your 
limited business ; — and caution you, — for he has a 
lively regard for your interests, — about continuing your 
ad^ -esses ? 

— The kind old curmudgeon ! 

Your man Tom hs\3 grown suddenly a very stupid 



126 Rkveries of a Bachelor. 

fellow ; and all your charity for withered wall-flowers, is 
gone. Perhaps in your wrath the suspicion comes over 
you, that she too wishes you were something higher, or 
more famous, or richer, or anything but what you are ! 
— a very dangerous suspicion : for no man with any 
ti'ue nobility of soul, can ever make his heart the slave 
of another's condescension. 

But no, — you will not, you cannot believe this of 
Nelly ; — that face of hers is too mild and gracious ; 
and her manner, as she takes your hand, after your 
heart is made sad, and turns away those rich blue 
eyes, — shadowed more deeply than ever by the long 
and moistened fringe ; — and the exquisite softness, and 
meaning of the pressure of those little fingers ; — and 
the low, half sob ; and the heaving of that bosom, in 
its struggles between love, and duty, — all forbid. 
Nelly, you could swear, is tenderly indulgent, like the 
fond creature that she is, toward all your short-com- 
ings ; and would not barter your strong love, and 
your honest heart, for the greatest magnate in the 
land. 

What a spur to effort is the confiding love of a true- 
hearted woman ! That last fond look of hers, hope- 
ful, and encouraging, has more power within it to 
norT9 your soul to high deeds, than all the admoni- 
tions of all your tutors. Your heart, beating large 
with hope, quickens the flow upon the brain ; and 



With a Wisp of Paper. 127 

;rou make wild vows to win greatness. But alas, this 
is a great world — very full, and very rough ; 

all up-hill work when we would do ; 



All down-hill, when we suffer.* 

Hard, withering toil only can achieve a name ; and 
long days, and months, and years, must be passed in 
the chase of that bubble — reputation ; which when 
once grasped, breaks in your eager clutch, into a hun- 
dred lesser bubbles, that soar above you still ! 

A clandestine meeting from time to time, and a note 
or two tenderly written, keep up the blaze in your 
heart. But presently, the lynx-eyed old guardian — so 
tender of your interests, and hers, — forbids even this 
iiTegular and unsatisfying correspondence. Now you 
can feed yourself only on stray ghmpses of her figure — 
as full of sprighthness and grace, as ever ; and that 
beaming face, you are half sorry to see from time to 
time, — still beautiful. You struggle with your moods 
of melancholy, and wear bright looks yourself — bright 
to her, and very bright to the eye of the old curmud- 
geon, who has snatched your heart away. It will never 
do to show your weakness to a man. 

At length, on some pleasant morning, you learn that 
she is gone, — too far away to be seen, too closely 



* Festus. 



128 Reveries of a Bachelok. 

guarded to be readied. For a while you tlirow dowa 
your books, and abandon your toil in despair, — think- 
ing very bitter thoughts, and making very helpless 
resolves. 

My cigar is still burning ; but it will require constant 
and strong respiration, to keep it in a glow. 

A letter or two dispatched at random, relieve tho 
excess of your fever ; until with practice, these random 
letters have even less heat in them, than the heat of 
your study, or of your business. Grief — thank God ! — 
is not so progressive, or so cumulative as joy. For a 
time, there is a pleasure in the mood, with which you 
recal your broken hopes ; and with which you selfishly 
link hers to the shattered wreck ; but absence, and 
ignorance tame the point of your woe. You call up 
the image of Nelly, adorning other and distant scenes. 
You see the tearful smile give place to a blithesome 
cheer ; and the thought of you that shaded her fair 
face so long, fades under the sunshine of gaiety ; or at 
oest, it only seems to cross that white forehead, like a 
playful shadow, that a fleecy cloud-remnant will fling 
upon a sunny lawn. 

As for you, the world with its whirl and roar, is 
deafening the sweet, distant notes, that come up 
through old, choked channels of the affections. Life 
is calling for earnestness, and not for regrets. So 
the months, and the years slip by ; your bachelor 



With a Wisp of Paper. 129 

habit grows easy and light with wearing ; yon have 
mourned enough, to smile at the violent mourning of 
others ; and you have enjoyed enough, to sigh over 
their Httle eddies of delight. Dark shades, and deli- 
cious streaks of crimson and gold color lie upon your 
hfe. Your heart with all its weight of ashes, can yet 
spai-kle at the sound of a fairy step ; and your face 
can yet open into a round of joyous smiles, — that are 
almost hopes, — in the presence of some bright-eyed 
girl. 

But amid this, there will float over you from time 
to time, a midnight trance, in which you will hear 
again with a thirsty ear, the witching melody of the 
days that are gone ; and you will wake from it with a 
shudder into the cold resolves of your lonely, and 
manly life. But the shudder passes as easy as night 
from morning. Tearful regrets, and memories that 
touch to the quick, are dull weapons to break through 
the panoply of your seared, efsger, and ambitious 
manhood. They only venture out hke timid, white- 
winged flies, when night is come ; and at the first 
ghmpse of the dawn, they shrivel up, and lie without 
a flutter, in som'e corner of your soul. 

And when, years after, you learn that she has re- 
turned — a woman, there is a slight glow, but no 
tumultuous bound of the heart. Life, and time 

have worried you down hke a spent hound. The 
6* 



130 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

world has given you a habit of easy and unmeaning 
smiles. You half accuse yourself of ingratitude and 
forgetfulness ; but the accusation does not oppress 
you. It does not even distract your attention from 
the morning journal. You cannot work yourself into 
a respectable degree of indignation against the old 
gentleman — her guardian. 

You sigh — poor thing ! — and in a very flashy waist- 
coat, you venture a morning call. 

She meets you kindly, — a comely, matronly dame 
in gingham, with her curls all gathered under a high- 
topped comb ; and she presents to you two little boys 
in smart crimson jackets, dressed up with braid. And 
you dine with Madame — a family party; and the 
weazen-faced old gentleman meets you with a most 
pleasant shake of the hand, — hints that you were 
among his niece's earliest friends, and hopes that you 
are getting on well ? 

Capitally well ! 

And the boys toddle in at dessert — Dick to get a 
plum from your own dish ; Tom to be kissed by his 
rosy -faced papa. In short, you are made perfectly at 
home ; and you sit over your wine for an hour, in a 
cozy smoke with the gentlemanly uncle, and with ther 
very courteous husband of your second flame. 

It is all very jovial at the table ; for good wine is, 
I find, a great strengthenor of the bachelor heart. 



With a Wisp of Paper. 131 

But afterward, when night has fairly set in, and the 
blaze of your fire goes flickering over your lonely 
quartei-s, 3^ou heave a deep sigh. And as your 
thought runs back to the perfidious Louise, and calls 
up the married, and matronly Nelly, you sob over 
that poor dumb heart within you, which craves so 
madly a free and joyous utterance ! And as you lean 
over v;ith your forehead in your hands, and your eyes 
fall ujDon the old hound slumbering on the I'ug, — the 
tears start, and you wish, — that you had married 
years ago ; — and that you too had your pan* of 
prattling boys, to drive away the lonehness of your 
•sohtary hearth stone. 

^^ly cigar would not go ; it was fairly out. 

But with true bachelor obstinacy, I vowed that I 
would light again. 



III. 

Lighted with a Match. 

I HATE a match. I feel sure that biimstono 
matches were never made in heaven; and it is 
sad to think, that with few exceptions, matches are all 
of them tipped with brimstone. 

But my taper having burned out, and the coals 
being all dead upon the hearth, a match is all that is 
left to me. 

All matches will not blaze on the first trial; and 
there are those, that with the most indefatigable 
coaxings, never show a spark. They may indeed 
leave in their trail phosphorescent streaks ; but you 
can no more light your cigar at them, than you can 
kindle your heart, at the covered wife-trails, which 
the infernal, gossipping, old match-makera will lay ia 
vo]\i' path. 



Lighted with a Match. 133 

Was there ever a Laclielor of seven and twenty, I 
wonder, who has not been haunted by pleasant old 
ladies, and trim, excellent, good-natured, married friends, 
who talk to him about nice matches — "very nice 
matches," — matches which never go oflf? And who, 
pray, has not had some kind old uncle, to fill two sheets 
for him, (perhaps in the time of heavy postages) about 
some most eligible connection, — " of highly respectable 
parentage !" 

What a dehghtful thing, surely, for a withered 
bachelor, to bloom forth in the dignity of an ancestral 
tree ! What a precious surprise for him, who has all 
his life worshipped the wing-heeled Mercury, to find on 
a sudden, a great stock of preserved, and most respect- 
able Penates ! 

In God's name, — thought I, puffing vehemently, 

— what is a man's heart given him for, if not to choose, 
where his heart's blood, every drop of it is flowino- ? 
Who is going to dam these billowy tides of the soul, 
whose roll is ordered' by a planet greater than the 
moon ; — and that planet — Venus ? Who is going to 
shift this vane of my desires, when every breeze that 
passes in my heaven is keeping it all the more strongly, 
to its fixed bearings ? 

Besides this, there are the money matches, urged 
upon you by disinterested bachelor friends, who would 
be very proud to see you at the head of an establish- 



134 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

ment. And I must confess that this kind of talk has a 
pleasant jingle about it ; and is one of the cleverest aids 
to a bachelor's day-dreams, that can well be imagined. 
And let not the pouting lady condemn me, without i^ 
hearing. 

It is certainly cheerful to think, — for a contemplative 
bachelor, — that the pretty ermine which so sets off the 
transparent hue of your imaginary wife, or the lace 
which lies so bewitchingly upon the superb roundness 
of her form, — or the graceful boddice, trimmed to a 
line, which is of such exquisite adaptation to her lithe 
figure, will be always at her command ; — nay, that 
these are only units among the chameleon hues, under 
which you shall feed upon her beauty ! I want to 
know if it is not a pretty cabinet picture, for fancy to 
luxuriate upon — that of a sweet wife, who is cheating 
hosts of friends into love, sympathy and admiration, by 
the modest munificence of her wealth ? Is it not 
i-ather agreeable, to feed your hopeful soul upon that 
abundance, which, while it sugphes her need, will give 
a range to her loving charities ; — which will keep from 
her brow the shadows of anxiety, and will sublime her 
gentle nature, by adding to it the grace of an angel of 
mercy ? 

Is it not rich, in those days when the pestilent hu- 
mors of bachelorhood hang heavy on you, to foresee in 
that shadowy realm, wli'jre hope is a native, the quiet 



Lighted with a Matos. 135 

of a home, made splendid with attractions ; and made 
real, by the presence of her, who bestows them ? — 
Upon my word — thought I, as I continued puffing, — 
such a match must make a very grateful lighting of 
one's inner sympathies ; nor am I prepared to say, that 
such associations would not add force to the most ab- 
stract love imaginable. 

Think of it for a moment ; — what is it, that we poor 
fellows love ? We love, if one may judge for himself, 
over his cigar, — gentleness, beauty, refinement, gene- 
I'osity, and intelligence, — and far above these, a return- 
ing love, made up of all these qualities, and gaining 
upon your love, day by day, and month by month, 
like a sunny morning, gaining upon the frosts of 
night. 

But wealth is a great means of refinement ; and it is 
a security for gentleness, since it removes disturbing 
anxieties ; and it is a pretty promoter of intelhgence, 
since it multiplies the avenues for its reception ; and it 
is a good basis for a generous habit of life; it even 
equips beauty, neither hardening its hand with toil, nor 
tempting the wrinkles to come early. But whether it 
provokes greatly that returning passion, — that abnega- 
tion of soul, — that sweet trustfulness, and abiding affec- 
tion, which are to clothe your heart with joy, is far 
more doubtful. Wealth while it gives so much, asks 
much in return ; and the sou that is grateful to mam- 



136 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

men, is not over ready to be grateful foi- intensity of 
love. It is hard to gratify those, who have nothing left 
to gratify. 

Heaven help the man who having wearied his soul 
with delays and doubts, or exhausted the freshness, and 
exuberance of his youth, — by a hundred little dallyings 
of .love, — consigns himself at length to the issues of 
what people call a nice match — whether of money, or 
of a family ! 

Heaven help you — (I brushed the ashes from my 
cigar) when you begin to regard marriage as only a 
respectable institution, and under the advices of staid 
old friends, begin to look about you for some very 
respectable wife. You may admire her figure, and 
her family ; and bear pleasantly in mind the very 
casual mention which has been made by some of 
your penetrating friends, — that she has large expect- 
ations. You think that she would make a very 
capital appearance at the head of your table ; nor in 
the event of your coming to any public honor, would 
she make you blush for her breeding. She talks 
well, exceedingly well ; and her face has its charms ; 
especially under a httle excitement. Her dress is 
elegant, and tasteful, and she is constantly remarked 
upon by all your friends, as a " nice person." Some 
good old lady, in Avhose pew she occasionally sits on a 
Sunday, or to whoir she has sometime sent a papier 



Lighted with a Match. 137 

maclie card-case, for the show-box of some Dorcas bene- 
volent society, thinks, — with a sly wink, — that she would 
make a fine wife for — somebody. 

She certainly has an elegant figure ; and the mar- 
riage of some half dozen of your old flames, warn you 
that time is slipping and your chances failing. And 
in the pleasant warmth of some after-dinner mood, 
you resolve — with her image in her prettiest pehsse 
drifting across your brain — that you will marry. 
Now comes the pleasant excitement of the chase; 
and whatever ftimily dignity may surround her, only 
adds to the pleasurable glow of the pursuit. You 
give an hour more to your toilette, and a hundred or 
two more, a year, to your tailor. All is orderly, 
dignified, and gracious. Charlotte is a sensible wo- 
man, everybody says; and you believe it yourself. 
You agree in your talk about books, and churches, and 
flowers. Of course she has good taste — for she accepts 
you. The acceptance is dignified, elegant, and even 
courteous. 

You receive numerous congratulations ; and your old 
friend Tom writes you — that he hears you are going 
to marry a splendid woman; and all the old ladies 
say— what a capital match ! And your business part- 
ner, who is a married man, and something of a wag — ■ 
" sympathizes sincerely." Upon the whole, you feel a 
little proud of your arrangement. You write to an old 



138 Reveries jf a Bachelor. 

friend in the country, that you are to marry presently 
Miss Charlotte of such a street, whose father was 
something very fine, in his way ; and whose father 
before him was very distinguished; — you add, in a 
postscript, that she is easily situated, and has " expecta- 
tions." Your friend, who has a wife that he loves, and 
that loves him, writes back kindly — " hoping you may 
be happy ;" and hoping so yourself, you light your 
cigar, — one of your last bachelor cigars, — with tho 
margin of his letter. 

The match goes off with a brilliant marriage ; — at 
which you receive a very elegant welcome from vour 
wife's spinster cousins, — and drink a great deal of 
champagne with her bachelor uncles. And as you 
take the dainty hand of your bride, — very magnifi- 
cent under that bridal wreath, and with her face lit 
up by a brilliant glow, — your eye, and your soul, for 
the first time, grow full. And as your arm circles 
that elegant figure, and you draw her toward you, 
feeling that she is yours, — there is a bound at your 
heart, that makes you think your . soul-hfe is now 
whole, and earnest. All your early dreams, and im- 
aginations, come flowing on your thought, like bewil- 
dering music ; and as you gaze upon her, — the admira- 
tion of that crowd, — it seems to you, that all that 
your heart prizes, is made good by the accident of mar- 
riage. 



Lighted with a mAroH. 139 

— ^Ah — thought I, brushing oflf the ashes again, — 
bridal pictures are not home pictures ; and the hour at 
tlie altar, is but a poor type of the waste of years ! 

Your household is elegantly ordered ; Charlotte has 
secui-ed the best of housekeepers, and she meets the 
comphments of your old friends who come to dine with 
you, with a suavity, that is never at fault. And they 
tell you, — after the cloth is removed, and you sit 
quietly smoking in memory of the olden times, — that 
she is a splendid woman. Even the old ladies who 
come for occasional charities, think Madame a pattern 
of a lady ; and so think her old admirers, whom she 
receives still with an easy grace, that half puzzles you. 
And as you stand by the ball room door, at two of 
the morning, with your Charlotte's shawl upon your 
arm, some little panting fellow will confirm the general 
opinion, by telling you that Madame is a magnificent 
dancer ; and Monsieur le Comte, will praise extrava- 
gantly her French. You are grateful for all this ; but 
you have an uncommonly serious way of expressing 
your gratitude. 

You think you ought to be a very happy fellow ; 
and yet long shadows do steal over your thought ; and 
you wonder that the sight of your Charlotte in the 
dress you used to admire so much, does not scatter 
them to the \vinds; but it does not. You feel coy 
about putting your arm around that delicately robed 



140 RE^ERIEs (. F A Bachelor. 

figure, — you might derange tlie plaitiiigs of her di-ess. 
She is civil towards you; and tender towards your 
bachelor friends. She talks with dignity, — adjusts hei* 
lace cape, — and hopes you will make a figure in the 
world, for the sake of the family. Her cheek is never 
soiled with a tear ; and her smiles are frequent, espe- 
cially when you have some spruce young fellows at 
your table. 

You catch sight of occasional notes perhaps, whosQ 
superscription you do not know ; and some of her ad- 
mirers' attentions become so pointed, and constant, that 
your pride is stirred. It would be silly to show jea- 
lousy ; but you suggest to your " dear" — as you sip 
your tea, — the slight impropriety of her action. 

Perhaps you fondly long for some little scene, as a 
proof of wounded confidence ; but no — nothing of that ; 
she trusts, (caUing you " my dear,") that she knows 
how to sustain the dignity of her position. 

You are too sick at heart, for comment, or for 
reply. 

And is this the intertwining of soul, of which 

you had dreamed in the days that are gone ? Is this 
the blending of sympathies that was to steal from life 
its bitterness ; and spread over care and suffering, the 
sweet, ministering hand of kindness, and of love ? 
A^'e, you may well wander back to your bachelor 
club, and make the hours long at the journals, or at 



Lighted with a Match. 141 

play — killing tlie flagging lapse of your life 1 Talk 
spriglitly ^vith your old friends, — and mimic the joy 
you have not ; or you will wear a bad name upon 
your hearth, and head. Never suffer your Charlotte 
to catch sight of the tears which in bitter hours, may 
start from your eye ; or to hear the sighs which in 
your times of sohtary musings, may break forth sud- 
den, and heavy. Go on counterfeiting your Hfe, as 
you have began. It was a nice match ; and you are 
a nice husband ! 

But you have a httle boy, thank God, toward 
whom your heart runs out freely ; and you love to 
catch him in his respite from your well-ordered nur- 
sery, and the tasks of his teachers — alone ; — and to 
spend upon him a little of that depth of feeling, 
which through so many years has scarce been stirred. 
You play with him at his games ; you fondle him ; 
you take him to your bosom. 

— But papa — he says — see how you have tumbled 
my collar. What shall I tell mamma ? 

Tell her, my boy, that I love you ! 

Ah, thought I — (my cigar was getting dull, and 
nauseous,) — is there not a spot in your heart, that 
the gloved hand of your elegant wife has never 
reached :— that you wish it might reach ? 

You go to see a far-away friend: his was not a 
' nice match :' he was mai'ried years before you : and 



142 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

yet the beairing looks of his wife, and his Hvely 
smile, are as fresh and honest as they were yeai-s 
ago ; and they make you ashamed of your disconso- 
late humor. Your stay is lengthened, but the 
home • letters are not urgent for your return : yet 
they are marvellously proper letters, and rounded 
with a French adieu. You could have wished a little 
scrav/1 from your boy at the bottom, in the place of 
the postscript which gives you the names of a new 
opera troupe ; and you hint as much — a very bold 
stroke for you. 

Ben, — she says, — writes too shamefully. 

And at your return, there is no great anticipation 
of delight ; in contrast with the old dreams, that a 
pleasant summer's journey has called up, your parlor 
as you enter it — so elegant, so still — so modish — 
seems the charnel-house of your heart. 

By and by, you fall into weary days of sickness ; 
you have capital nurses — nurses highly recommend- 
ed — nurses who never make mistakes — nurses who 
have served long in the family. But alas for that 
heart of sympathy, and for that sweet face, shaded 
^vith your pain — like a soft landscape with flying 
clouds — ^you have none of them ! Your pattern wife 
may come in from time to time to look ixfter your 
nurse, or to ask after your sleep, and glide out — her 
silk dress rustling upon the door — hke dead leaves 



Lighted with a Match. 143 

in the cool night breezes of winter. Or perhaps 
after putting this chair in its place, and adjusting to a 
more tasteful fold that curtain — she will ask you, with 
a tone that might mean sympathy, if it were not a 
stranger to you, — if she can do anything more. 

Thank her — as kindly as you can, and close your 
eyes, and dream : — or rouse up, to lay your hand 
upon the head of your little boy, — to drink in health, 
and happiness, from his earnest look, as he gazes 
strangely upon your pale and shrunken forehead. 
Yom- smile even, ghastly with long sufiering, disturbs 
him ; there is no interpreter, save the heart, between 
you. 

Your parched lips feel strangely, to his flushed, 
healthful face ; and he steps about on tip-toe, at a 
motion from the nurse, to look at all those rosy- 
colored medicmes upon the table, — and he takes 
your cane from the corner, and passes his hand over 
the smooth ivory head ; and he runs his eye along the 
wall from picture to picture, till it rests on one he 
knows, — a figure in bridal dress, — beautiful, almost 
fond ; — and he forgets himself, and says aloud — - 
' there 's mamma ! ' 

The nurse puts her finger to her lip ; you waken 
from youi' doze to see where your eager boy is look- 
ing ; and your eyes too, take in much as they can of 



144 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

that figure — now sliadowy to your fainting vision — 
doubly sliadowy tt your fainting heart ! 

From day to day, you sink from life : the physician 
says the end is not far off ; why should it be ? 
There is very little elastic force within you to keep 
the end away. Madame is called, and your little 
boy. Your sight is dim, but they whisper that she 
is beside your bed ; and you reach out your hand — 
both hands. You fancy you hear a sob : — a strange 
sound ! It seems as if it came from distant years — 
a confused, broken sigh, sweeping over the long stretch 
of your life : and a sigh from your heart — not audible — 
answers it. 

Your trembling fingers clutch the hand of your 
little boy, and you drag him toward you, and move 
your hps, as if you would speak to him; and they 
place his head near you, so that you feel his fine hair 

brushing your cheek. My boy, you must love — 

your mother ! 

Your other hand feels a quick, convulsive grasp, 
and something like a tear drops upon your face. 
Good God ! — Can it be indeed a tear ? 

You strain your vision, and a feeble smile flits 
over yom* features, as you seem to see her figure — 
the figm'e of the painting — bending over you ; and 
you feel a bound at your heart — the same bound that 
you felt on your bridal morning ; — the same bound 



L T G H T ED WITH A M A T C II . 1 i5 

which you used to feel in the spring-time of your 
life. 

Only one — rich, full bound of the heart ; 

that is all 1 

My cigar was out. I could not have ht it 

again, if I would. It was wholly burned. 



"Aunt Tabithy" — said I, as I finished reading,— 
" may I smoke now under your rose tree ?" 

Aunt Tabithy, who had laid down her knitting to 
hear me, — smiled, — brushed a tear from her old eyes, 
— said, — " Yes — Isaac," and having scratched the back 
of her head, with the disengaged needle, resumed her 
knitting. 



iouvtl) Bcucnc. 



JlToruing, SToon, ani) (EBcning. 



MORNING, NOON, AND EVENING. 



IT is a Spring day under the oaks — the loved oaks 
of a once cherished home, — now, alas, mine no 
longer ! 

I had sold the old form-house, and the groves, and 
the cool springs, where I had bathed my head in the 
heats of summer ; and with the first warm days of 
May, they were to pass from me forever. Seventy 
years they had been in the possession of my mother's 
family ; for seventy years, they had borne the same 
name of proprietorship ; for seventy yeiirs, the Lares of 
our country home, often neglected, almost forgotten, — ■ 
yet brightened from time to time, by gleams of heart- 
worship, had held their place in the sweet \'alley of 
Elmf^rove. 



150 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

And in this changeful, bustling, Aoerican hfe of ours, 
sc\enty years is no child's hoUday. The hurry of 
action, and progress, may pass over it with quick step ; 
hut the foot-prints are many and deep. You surely 
will not wonder that it made me sad and thoughtful, to 
break the chain of years, that bound to my heart, the 

oaks, the hills, the springs, the valley and sucli a 

valley ! 

A wild stream rnns through it, — large enough to 
make a river for English landscape, — winding between 
rich banks, where in summer time, the swallows build 
their nests, and brood by myriads. 

Tall elms rise here and there along the margin, 
and with their uplifted arms, and leafy spra}^, throw 
great patches of shade upon the meadow. Old lion- 
hke oaks, too, where the meadow-soil hardens into roll- 
ing upland, listen to the ground with their ridgy roots ; 
and with their gray, sci-aggy limbs, make delicious 
shelter for tlie panting workers, or for the herds of 
August. 

"Westward of the stream, where I am lying, the 
banks roll up swiftly into sloping hills, covered with 
groves of oaks, and green pasture lands, doited with 
mossy rocks. And farther on, where some w'ood has 
been swept down, some ten years gone, by the axe, 
the new growth, heavy with the luxuriant foliage of 
spring, covers wide spots of the slanting land ; — while 



Morning, Noon, and Evening. 151 

some dead tree in the midst, still stretches out its baro 
arras to the blast — a solitary mourner, over the wreck 
of its forest brothers. 

Eastward, the ridgy bank passes into wavy mea- 
dows, upon whose farther edge, you see the roofs of 
an old mansion, with tall chimneys and taller elm- 
trees shading it. Beyond, the hills rise gently, and 
sweep away into wood-crowned heights, that are blue 
with distance. At the upper end of the valley, the 
stream is lost to the eye, in a wide sw^amp wood, 
which in the autumn time is covered with a scarlet 
sheet, blotched here and there by the dark crimson 
stains of the ash-tops. Farther on, the hills crowd 
close to the brook, and come down with granite 
boulders, and scattered birch trees, and beeches, — 
under which, upon the smoky mornings of May, I have 
time and again loitered, and thrown my line into the 
pools, which curl, dark, and still, under their tangled 
roots. 

Below, and looking southward, through the openings 
of the oaks that shade me, I see a broad stretch of mea- 
dow, with glimpses of the silver surface of the stream, 
and of the giant solitary elms, and of some old maple 
that has yielded to the spring tides, and now dips its 
lower boughs in the insidious current ; — and of clumps 
of alders, and willow tufts, — above which even now, the 
black-and-white coated Bob-o'-Lincolu, is wheeling his 



152 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

musical flight, while his quieter mate sits swaying on 
the topmost twigs. 

A quiet road pass is within a short distance of me, 
and crosses the brook by a rude timber bridge ; beside 
the bridge, is a broad glassy pool, shaded by old ma- 
ples, and hickories, where the cattle drink each morn- 
ing on their way to the hill pastures. A step or two 
beyond the stream, a lane branches across the meadows, 
to the mansion with the tall chimneys. I can just 
remember now, the stout, broad-shouldered old gentle- 
man, Avith his white hat, his long white hair, and his 
white headed cane, who built the house, and who farm- 
ed the whole valley around me. He is gone, long 
since ; and lies in a grave yard looking upon the sea 1 
The elms that he planted shake their weird arms over 
the mouldering roofs ; and his fruit-garden shows only 
a battered phalanx of mossy hmbs, which will scarce 
tempt the July marauders. 

In the other direction, upon this side the brook, the 
road is lost to view, among the trees; but if I 
were to follow the windings upon the hill-side, it 
would bring me shortly upon the old home of my 
grandfother; there is no pleasui-e in vvandei-ing there 
now. The woods that sheltered it from the northern 
winds, are cut down ; the tall cherries that made the 
yard one leafy bower, are dead. The cornice is 
strao^o^l'ng from the eaves ; the porch has fiillen ; the 



MORNIXG, XOON, AXD EvENlNQ. 153 

sioiiG cliimiioy is yawning witli wide gaps. Witliin, 
it is even worse ; the floors sway upon tlie moulder- 
ing Ijearas ; the doors all sag from their hinges ; the 
rude frescos upon the parlor-wall are peeling off; all 

is going to decay. -And m}^ grandfether sleeps in 

a little grave-3'ard, by the garden-wall. 

A lane brandies from the country road, within a 
few yards of me, and leads back, alonjy the edo-e of 
the meadow, to the homely cottage, which has been 
my special care. Its gi-ay porch, and chimney are 
thrown into rich relief, by a grove of oaks that skirts 
the hill behind it ; and the doves are flying uneasily 
about the open doors of the granary, and barns. The 
morning sun shines pleasantly on the gray group of 
buildings ; and the lowing of the cows, not yet driven 
afield, adds to the charming homeliness of the scene. 
But alas, for the poor azahas, and laurels, and vines, 
that I had put out upon the httle knoll before the 
cottage door — they are all of them trodden down : 
only one poor creeper hangs its loose tresses to the lat- 
tice, all dishevelled, and forlorn ! 

This bye-lane which opens upon my farm-house, 
leaves the road in the middle of a grove of oaks ; the 
brown gate swings upon an oak tree, — the brown 
gate closes upon an oak tree. There is a rustic seat, 
built between two veteran trees, that rise from a httle 
hillock near by. Ilalf • a centuiy ago, there was a 



154 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

rustic seat on tlie same hillock — between the same 
veteran trees. I can trace marks of the old blotches 
upon the bark, and the scars of the nails, upon the 
scathed trunks. Time, and time again, it has been 
renewed. This, the last, was built by my own hands, 
— a cheerful, and a holy duty. 

Sixty years ago, they tell me, my grandfather used 
to loiter here with his gun, while his hounds lay 
around under the scattered oaks. Now he sleeps, as 
I said, in the little grave-yard yonder, where I can see 
one or two white tablets glimmering through the 
foliage. I never knew him; he died, as the brown 
stone table says, aged twenty-six. Yesterday I chmbed 
the wall that skirts the yard, and plucked a flower 
from his tomb. I take out now from my pocket 
book, that flower — a frail, first-blooming violet, — 
and write upon the slip of paper, into which I have 
thrust its delicate stem, — 'From my grandfather''s 
tomb: — 1850.' 

But other feet have trod upon this knoll — far more 
dear to me. The old neighbors have sometimes 
told me, how they have seen, forty yeai-s ago, two 
rosy-faced girls, idhng on this spot, under the shade, 
and gathering acorns, and making oak-leaved garlands, 

for their foreheads. Alas, alas, the garlands they 

wear now, are not earthly garlands ! 

Upon that spot, and upon that rustic seat, I am 



Morning, Noon, and Evening. 155 

lying tills May morning. I have placed my gun against 
a tree; my shot-poucli I have himg upon a broken 
limb. I have thrown my feet upon the bench, and 
lean against one of the gnarled oaks, between whicb 
the seat is built. My hat is off; my book and ]-)aper, 
are beside me ; and my pencil trembles in my lingers, 
as I catch sight of those white marble tablets, gleaming 
through the trees, from the height above me, like beck- 
oning angel faces. If they were alive ! — two more 

near, and dear friends, in a world where we count 
friends, by units ! 

It is morning — a bright spring morning under tlie 
oaks — these loved oaks of a once cherished home. 
Last night, I slept in yonder mansion, under the elms. 
The cattle going to the pasture are drinking in the pool 
by the bridge; the boy who drives them, is making 
his shrill halloo echo against the hills. The sun has 
risen fairly over the eastern heights, and shines brightly 
upon the meadow land, and brightly upon a bend of 
the brook below me. The birds, — the blue-birds 
sweetest and noisiest of all, — are singing over me in 
the branches. A wood-pecker is hammering at a dry 
limb aloft ; and Carlo pricks up his ears, and listens, 
and looks at me, — then stretches out his head upon his 
paws, in a warm bit of the sunshine, — and sleeps. 

Morning brings back to me the Past; and the past 
orings up not only its actualities, not only its events, 



156 Reveries of a Baclelor. 

and memories, but — stranger still, — wLat might liave 
been. Every little circumstance which dawns on the 
awakened memory, is traced not only to its actual, but 
to its possible issues. 

What a wide world that makes of the Past! — a 
gi-eat and gorgeous, — a rich and holy world ! Your 
fancy fills it up artist-like ; the darkness is mellowed off 
into soft shades ; the bright spots are veiled in the 
sweet atmosphere of distance ; and fancy and memory 
together, make up a rich dream-land of the past. 

And now, as I go on to trace upon paper some of the 
visions that float across that dream-land of the Morn- 
ing, — I will not — I cannot say, how much comes fancy- 
wise, and how much fi-om this vaulting memory. Of 
this, the kind reader shall himself be judge. 



The Morning. 

ISABEL and I, — she is my cousin, and is seven 
years old, and I am ten, — are sitting together on 
the bank of the stream, under an oak tree that leans 
half way over to the water. I am much stronger than 
she, and taller by a head. I hold in my hands a Httle 
alder rod, with which I am fishing for the roach and 
minnows, that play in the pool below us. 

She is watching the cork tossing on the water, or 
playing with the captui-ed fish that he upon the bank. 
She has auburn ringlets that fall down upon her 
shoulders ; and her straw hat lies back upon them, held 
only by the strip of ribbon, that passes under her chin. 
But the sun does not shine upon her head ; for the oak 
tree above us is full of leaves ; and only here and there, 



158 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

a dimple of the siinliglit plays ujion the pool, where I 
am jfishing. 

Hei eye is hazel, and bright ; and now and then she 
tm-ns it on me with a look of girlish cm-iosity, as I lift 
up my rod, — and again in playful menace, as she gi-asps 
in her little fingers one of the dead fish, and threatens 
to throw it back upon the stream. Her httle feet hang 
over the edge of the bank • and from time to time, she 
reaches down to dip her to 3 in the water ; and laughs 
a girhsh laugh of defiance, as I scold her for fi-ightening 
away the fishes. 

" Bella," I say, " what if you should tumble m the 
river ?" 

"But I wont." 

" Yes, but if you should ?" 

" Why then you would pull me out." 

" But if I wouldn't pall you out V 

" But I know you would ; wouldn't you, Paul ?" 

" What makes you think so, Bella ?" 

" Because you love Bella." 

" How do you know I love Bella ?" 

*' Because once you told me so ; and because you 
pick flowers for me that I cannot reach ; and because 
you let me take your rod, when you have a fish upon 
it." 

" But that's no rea«^on, Bella." 

" Then what is, Paul ?" 



The AIoRNiNG. 150 

" I'm sure T don't know, Bella." 

A little fish lias been nibbling for a l.ng time at the 
bait ; the cork has been bobbing up and doAvn ; — and 
now he is foirly hooked, and pulls away toward the 
bank, and you cannot see the cork. 

— "Here, Bella, quick!" — and she springs eagerly 
to clasp her little hands around the rod. But the fi.-^li 
has dragged it away on the other side of me ; and as 
she reaches farther, and farther, she slips, cries — " oh, 
Paul !" — and falls into the water. 

The stream they told us, when we came, was over 
a man's head — it is surely over little Isabel's. I fling 
down the rod, and thrusting one hand into the roots 
that support the overhanging bank, I g)-asp at her hat, 
as she comes up ; but the ribbons give way, and I see 
the terribly earnest look upon her face as she goes 
down again. Oh, my mother ! — thought I, — if you 
were only here ! 

But she rises again ; this time, I thrust my hand 
into her dress, and struggling hard, keep her at the 
top, until I can place my foot down upon a project- 
ing root ; and so bracing myself, I drag her to the 
bank, and having climbed up, take hold of her belt 
firmly with both hands, and drag her out; and poor 
Isabel, choked, chilled, and wet, is lying upon the 
grass. 

I commence crying aloud. The workmen in the 



IGO Reveries of a Baciislor. 

fields hear mo, and come down. One takes Isabel in 
his arms, and I follow on foot to ouv uncle's home upon 
the hill. 

— " Oh my children !" — says my mother ; and she 
takes Isabel in her arms ; and presently with dry 
clothes, and blazing wood-fire, httle Bella smiles again. 
I am at my mother's knee. 

" I told you so, Paul," says Isabel, — " aunty, doesn't 
Paul love me ?" 

" I hope so, Bella," said my mother. 

" I know so," said I ; and kissed her cheek. 

And how did I know it ? The boy does not ask ; 
the man does. Oh, the freshness, the honesty, the 
vigor of a boy's heart ! — how the memory of it re- 
freshes hke the first gush of spring, or the break of an 
April shower ! 

But boyhood has its Pride, as well as its Loves. 

My uncle is a tall, hard-faced man ; I fear him 
■when he calls me — ^" child" ; I love him when he 
calls me — " Paul." He is almost always busy vnth 
his books ; and when I steal into the library door, as 
I sometimes do, with a string of fish, or a heaping 
basket of nuts to show to him, — he looks for a mo- 
ment curiously at them, sometimes takes them in his 
fingers, — gives them back to me, and turns over the 
leaves of his book. You are afraid to ask him, if 
you have not worked bravely ; yet you want to do so. 



The Morning. IGl 

You sidle out softly, and go to your mother ; she 
scarce looks at your little stores ; but she draws you to 
her with her arm, and prints a kiss upon your 
forehead. Now your tongue is unloosed ; that kiss, 
and that action have done it ; you will tell what 
capital luck you have had ; and you hold up your 
tempting trophies ; — " are they not great, mother f 
But she is looking in your face, and not at your 
prize. 

" Take them, mother," and you lay the basket upon 
her lap. 

" Thank you, Paul, I do not wish them : but you 
must give some to Bella." 

And away you go to find laughing, playful, cousin 
Isabel. And we sit down together on the grass, and 
T pour out my stores between us. " You shall take, 
Bella, what you wish in your apron, and then when 
study hours are over, we w ill have such a time down by 
the big rock in the meadow !" 

" But I do not know if papa will let me," says 
Isabel. 

" Bella," I say, " do you love your papa ?" 

« Yes," says Bella, " why not ?" 

" Because he is so cold ; he does not kiss you, 
Bella, so often as my mother does ; and besides, 
when he forbids your going away, he does not say, as 
'"'Other does, — my little girl will be tired, she had 



1G2 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

better not go, — but he says only, — I&al^l must cot go. 
I wonder what makes him talk so ?" 

" Why Paul, he is a man, and doesn't at any 

rate, I love him, Paul. Besides, my mother is sick, 
you know." 

" But Isabel, my mother will be youi- mother too. 
Come Bella, we will go ask her if we may go." 

And tliere I am, the hapj^iest of boys, pleading 
with the kindest of mothers. And the young heart 
leans into that mother's heart ; — none of the void now 
that will overtake it like an opening Korah gulf, in the 
years that are to come. It is joyous, full, and running 
over ! 

" You may go," she says, " if your uncle is 
willmg." 

" But mamma, I am afraid to ask him ; I do not 
believe he loves me." 

"Don't say so, Paul," and she draws you to her 
side ; as if she would supply by her own love, the 
lacking love of a universe. 

" Go, with 'your cousin Isabel, and ask him kindly ; 
and if he says no, — make no reply." 

And with courage, we go hand in hand, and steal in 
at the hbrary door. There he sits — I seem to see 
him now, — in the old wainscotted room, covered over 
with books and pictures ; and he wears his heavy- 
rimmed spectacles, and is poring over soinc big volume, 



The MoiiMNG. IG;^ 

full of hard words, that are not in any spellii)g-book. 
^Ve step up softly ; and Isabel lays her little hand upon 
his arm ; and he turns, a id says — " well, my little 
daughter T' 

I ask if we may go down to the big rock in the 
meadow ? 

lie looks at Isabel, and sajs he is afraid — " we 
cannot go." 

" But why, uncle ? It is only a litile way, and we 
will be very careful." 

"I am afraid, my children; do not say any more : 
you can have the pony, and Tray, and play at 
home." 

" But, uncle " 

" You need say no more, my child." 

I pinch the hand of httle Isabel, and look in her 
eye, — my own hall filling with tears. I feel that my 
forehead is flushed, and I hide it behind Bella's 
tresses, — whispering to her at the same time — " let us 
go." 

" AYhat, sir," says my uncle, mistaking my meaning 
— " dj you persuade her to disobey ?" 

i'J'ow I mn angry, and say blindly — " no, sir, I 
didn't !" And then my rising j^i'ide will not let me 
say, that I wished only Isabel should go out with me. 

Bella cries ; and I shrink out ; and am not easy 
VLiil I have run to bury my head in my mother's 



1 G 4 K E V E U I E S OF A B A C II E L O K . 

bosom. Alas ! pride cannot always find such covert / 
There will be times wliei. it will harrass you strangely ; 
when it will peril friendships, — will sever old, standing 
intimacy ; and then — no resource, but to feed on its 
own bitterness. Hateful pride ! — to be conquered, as a 
man would conquer an enemy, or it will make whirl- 
pools in the current of your affections — nay, turn the 
whole tide of the heart into rough, and unaccustomed 
channels ? 

But boyhood has its Grief too, apart from Pride. 

You love the old dog Tray ; and Bella loves him 
as well as you. He is a noble old fellow, with shaggy 
hair, and long ears, and big paws, that he will put 
up into your hand, if you ask him. And he never 
gets angry when you play with him, and tumble him 
over in the long grass, and pull his silken ears. 
Sometimes, to be sure, he will open his mouth, as if 
he would bite, but when he gets your hand fairly in 
his jaws, he will scaice leave the print of his teeth 
upon it. He will swim, too, bravely, and bring ashore 
all the sticks you throw upon the water ; and when 
you fling a stone to tease him, he swims round and 
round, and whines, and looks sorry, that he cannot 
find it. 

He will carry a heaping basket full of nuts too in 
his mouth, and never spill one of them; and when 
you come out to your uucle'^i home in the spring, 



The ]\[ornt\g. 1G5 

after staying' a "wliole "v^Mnter in the town, lie knows 
you — old Tray does ! And ho leaps upon you, and 
lays his paws on your shoulder, and licks ycur face ; 
and is almost as glad to see you, as cousin Bella 
herself. And ^vhen you put Bella on his back for a 
ride, he only pretends to bite her Mttle feet ; — but 
he w^ouldn'l do it for the world. Aye, Tray is a noble 
old dog ! 

But one summer, the farmers say that some of 
their sheep are killed, and that the dogs have worried 
them ; and one of them comes to talk with my uncle 
about it. 

But Tray never worried sheep ; you know he never 
did ; and so does nurse ; and so does Bella ; — for in 
the spring, she had a pet lamb, and Tray never worried 
httle Fidele. 

And one or two of the dogs that belong to the 
neighbors are shot ; though nobody knows who shot 
them ; and you have great fears about poor Tray ; 
and try to keep him at home, and fondle him more 
than ever. But Tray will sometimes wander off; till 
finally, one afternoon, he comes back whining piteously, 
and with his shoulder all bloody. 

Little Bella cries loud ; and you almost ciy, aa 
nui-se dresses the wound ; and poor old Tray whines 
very sadly. You pat his head, and Bella pats him ; 
and you sit down together by him on the floor of the 



1 GO U E V E R I K S O F A B A DUEL R . 

porch, and bring a rug for him to lie upon , and 
try and tempt him v/iih a httle milk, and Bella bring.s 
a })iecc of cake for him, — but he will eat nothing. 
You sit up till very late, long after Bella has gone to 
bed, patting his head, and wishing you could do 
something for poor Tray ; — but he only licks your 
hand, and whines more piteously than ever. 

In the morning, you dress early, and hurry down 
stairs ; but Tray is not lying on the rug ; and you 
i-un through the house to find him, and whistle, and 
call — Tray ! — Ti-ay ! At length you see him lying 
in his old place, out by the cherry tree, and you 
run to him ; — but he does not start ; and you lean 
down to pat him, — but he is cold, and the dew is wet 
upon him : — poor Tray is dead ! 

You take his head upon your knees, and pat again 
those glossy ears, and cry ; but you cannot bring 
him to life. And Bella comes, and cries ^vith you. 
You can hardly bear to have him j^ut in the ground ; 
but uncle says he must be buried. So one of the 
workmen digs a grave under the cherry tree, where he 
died — a deep gi-ave, and they round it over with 
earth, and snx)oth the sods upon it — even now I can 
trace Tray's grave. 

You and Bella together, put up a httle slab for 
a tomdstone and she hangs flowei-s upon it, and ties 
them there with a bit of ribbon. You can scarce 



'I n E ^\ o li ^ r x o . 1G7 

play all that clay ; and afterward, many weeks later 
when you are rambling over the fields, or lingering by 
the brook, throwing off sticks into the eddies, you think 
of old Tray's shaggy coat, and of his big paw, and of 
his honest eye ; and the memory of your boyish grief 

comes upon you ; and you say with tears, " poor 

Tray !" And Bella too, in her sad, sweet tones, sav? 
" poor old Tray, — he is dead !" 



School Days. 

The morning was cloudy and threatened rain ; bo^ 
sides, it was autumn weather, and the winds were get- 
ting harsh, and rusthng among the tree-tops that 
shaded the house, most dismally. I did not dare to 
listen. If indeed, I were to stay by the bright fires of 
home, and gather the nuts as they fell, and pile up the 
falling leaves, to make great bonfires, Avith Ben, and the 
rest of the boys, I should have liked to listen, and 
would have braved the dismal morning with the cheer- 
fullest of them all. For it would have been a capital 
time to fight a fire in the httle oven we had built under 
the wall ; it would have been so pleasant to warm our 
fingers at it, and to roast the great russets on the flat 
stones that made the top. 

Bu'. this was not in store for me. I bad bid the 



168 Reveries of i B a o h e l o ii . 

tov>n boys c;ood bye, the daj- before ; my trunk was ali 
packed ; I was to go away — to school. The httle oveu 
away from them so far, that I should only know what 
they were all doing — in letters. It was sad. And 
then to have the clouds come over on that morning, 
and the winds sigh so dismally ; — oh, it was too bad, I 
thought ! 

It comes back to me as I he here this bright spring 
morning, as if it were only yesterday. I remember 
that tiie pigeons skulked under the eaves of the car- 
riage house, and did not sit, as they used to do in 
summer, upon the ridge ; and the chickens huddled to- 
gether about the stable doors, as if they were afraid of 
the cold autumn. And in the garden, the white holly- 
hocks stood shivei-ing, and bowed to the wind, as if 
their time had come. The yellow muskmelons showed 
plain among the frost-bitten vines, and looked cold, and 
uncomfortable. 

Then they were all so kind, in-doors ! The 

cook made such nice things for my breakfast, be- 
cause little master was going ; Lilly wovM give me 
her seat by the fire, and would put her lump of sugar 
in my cu]) ; and my mother looked so smihng, and so 
tenderly, that I thought I loved her more than I ever 



The Morning. 169 

did before. Little Ben was so gay too; and wante(» 
me to take his jack-knife, if I wished it, — though he 
knew that I had a bran new one in my trunk. The 
old nurse slipped a little purse into my hand, tied 
up with a green ribbon — with money in it, — and toll 
me not to show it to Ben or Lilly. 

And cousin Isabel, who was there on a visit, would 
come to stand by my chair, when my mother was 
talking to me ; and put her hand in mine, and look up 
into my face ; but she did not say a word. I thought 
it was very odd ; and yet it did not seem odd to 
me, that I could say nothing to her. I daresay we 
felt alike. 

At length Ben came running in, and said the 
coach had come ; and there, sure enough, out of the 
window, we saw it — a bright yellow coach, with four 
white horses, and band-boxes all over the top, with 
a great pile of trunks behind. Ben said it was a 
grand coach, and that he should like a ride in it ; and 
the old nurse came to the door, and said I should have 
a capital time ; but somehow, I doubted if the nurse 
w^as talking honestly. I believe she gavo me an 
honest kiss though, — and such a hug ! 

But it was nothing to my mother's. Tom told 

me to be a man, and study like a Trojan ; but I was 

not thinking about study then. There was a tall-boy 

in the coach, and I was ashamed to have him see me 
8 



lYO Reveries of a Bachelor. 

cry ; — so I didn't, at first. But I remember, as • 
looked back, and saw little Isabel run out into tli< 
middle of tlie street, to see the coacb go off, and tli< 
cm-Is floating behind her, as the wind freshened, 1 
felt my heart leaping into my throat, and the water 
coming into my eyes, — and how just then, I caught 
sight of the tall boy glancing at me, — and how I tried 
to turn it off, by looking to see if I could button 
up my great coat, a gi-eat deal lower down than the 
button holes went. 

But it was of no use ; I put my head out of 
the coach window, and looked back, as the little figure 
of Isabel faded, and then the house, and the trees ; and 
the tears did come ; and I smuggled my handkerchief 
outside without turning ; so that I could wipe my eyes, 
before the tall boy should see me. They say that 
these shadows of morning fade, as the sun brightens 
into noon-day ; but they are very dark shadows for all 
that! 

Let the father, or the mother think long, before 
they send away their boy — before they break the 
home-ties that make a web of infinite fineness and 
soft silken meshes around his heart, and toss him 
aloof into the boy-world, where he must struggle up 
amid bickerings and quarrels, into his age of youth ! 
There are boys indeed with little fineness in the tex- 
ture of their hearts, and with little delicacy of soul, 



The Mounino. 171 

to whom the school in a distant village, is but a vaca- 
tion from home ; and with whom, a return revives all 
those grosser affections which alone existed before ; — 
just as there are plants which will bear all exposure 
without the wilting of a leaf, and will return to the hot- 
house life, as strong, and as hopeful as ever. But 
there are others, to whom the severance from the 
prattle of sisters, the indulgent fondness of a mother, 
and the unseen influences of the home altar, gives a 
shock that lasts forever ; it is wrenching with cruel 
hand, what will bear but Uttle roughness ; and the sobs 
with which the adieux are said, are sobs that may 
come back in the after years, strong, and steady, and 
terrible. 

God have mercy on the boy who learns to sob early ! 
Condemn it as sentiment, if you will ; talk as you will 
of the fearlessness, and strength of the boy's heart, — 
yet there belong to many, tenderly strung chords of 
aifection which give forth low, and gentle music, that 
consoles, and ripens the ear for all the harmonies of 
life. These chords a little rude, and unnatural tension 
will break, and break forever. Watch your boy then, 
if so be he will bear the strain ; try his nature, if it 
be rude or delicate ; and if delicate, in God's name, 
do not, as you value your peace and his, breed a liarsh 
youth spirit in him, that shall take pride in subjugat- 



1*72 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

ing, and forgetting the delicacy, and richness of his finer 
affections ! 

1 see now, looking into the past, the troops of 

boys who were scattered in the great play-gi'ound, as 
the coach drove up at night. The school was in a tall, 
stately building, with a high cupola on the top, where 1 
thought I would like to go up. The schoolmaster, 
they told me at home, was kind ; he said he hoped I 
would be a good boy, and patted me on the head ; but 
he did not pat me as my mother used to do. Then 
there was a woman, whom they called the Matron ; 
who had a great many ribbons in her cap, and who 
shook my hand, — but so stiffly, that I didn't dare to 
look up in her face. 

One boy took me down to see the school room, 
which was in the basement, and the walls were all 
mouldy, I remember ; and when we passed a certain 
door, he said, — there was the dungeon ; — how I felt ! 
I hated that boy ; but I believe be is dead now. 
Then the matron took me up to my i-oom, — a little 
corner room, with two beds, and two windows, and a 
red table, and closet ; and my chum was about my 
size, and wore a queer roundabout jacket with big 
bell buttons ; and he called the schoolmaster — " Old 
Crikey'- — and kept me awake half the night, telling 
me how he whipped the scholars, and how they played 



The Morxtng. 173 

tricks upou liim. I thought ra}^ chum was a very un- 
common boy. 

For a day or two, the lessons were easy, and it was 
sport to phiy with so many " fellows." But soon I be- 
gan to feel lonely at night after I had gone to bed. I 
used to wish I could have my mother come, and kiss 
me ; after school too, I wished I could step in, and tell 
Isal)el how bravely I had got my lessons. When I 
told my chum this, he laughed at me, and said that 
was no place for ' homesick, white-livered chaps.' I 
\vondered if my chum had any mother. 

We had spending money once a week, with which 
we used to go down to the village store, and club our 
funds together, to make great pitchers of lemonade. 
Some boys would have money besides ; though it was 
against the rules ; and one, I recollect, showed us a five 
dollar bill in his wallet — and we all thought he must 
be very rich. 

We marched in procession to the village church 
on Sundays. There were two long benches in the 
galleries, reaching down the sides of the meeting- 
house ; and on these we sat. At the first, T was 
among the smallest boys, and took a place close to 
the wall, against the pulpit ; but afterward, as I grew 
bigger, I was promoted to the lower end of the first 
bench. This I never hked; — because it was close 
by one of the ushei-s, and because it brought me next 



174 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

to some country women, wlio wore stiff bonnets, and 
eat fennel, and sung with the choir. But there was 
a httle black-eyed girl, who sat over behind the choir, 
that I thought handsome ; I used to look at her very 
often ; but was careful she should never catch my 
eye. 

There was another down below, in a corner pew, who 
was pretty ; and who wore a hat in the winter trim- 
med with fur. Half the boys in the school said they 
would marry her some day or other. One's name was 
Jane, and that of the other, Sophia ; which we thouglit 
l->retty names, and cut them on the ice, in skating 
time. But I didn't think either of them so pretty as 
Isabel. 

Once a teacher whipped me : I bore it bravely in the 
school : but afterward, at night, when my chum was 
asleep, I sobbed bitterly, as I thought of Isabel, and 
Ben, and my mother, and how much they loved me ; 
and laying my face in my hands, I sobbed myself to 
sleep. In the morning I was calm enough : — it was 
another of the heart ties broken, though I did not 
know it then. It lessened the old attachment to 
home, because that home could neither protect me, 
nor soothe me with its sympathies. Memory indeed 
freshened and grew strong ; but strong in bitterness, 
and in regrets. The boy whose love you cannot feed 
by daily nourishment, will find pride, self-indulgence, 



The Morning. 175 

and an iron piiq)ose coming in to fui'iiisli other supply 
for the soul that is in him. If he cannot shoot his 
branches into the sunshine, he will become acchmated 
to the shadow, and indiflferent to such stray gleams of 
sunshine, as his fortune may vouchsafe. 

Hostilities would sometimes threaten between the 
school and the village boys ; but they usually passed 
off, with such loud, and harmless explosions, as belong 
to the wars of our small pohticians. The village 
champions were a hatter's apprentice, and a thick 
set fellow who worked in a tannery. We prided 
ourselves especially on one stout boy, who wore a 
sailor's monkey jacket. I cannot but think how 
jaunty that stout boy looked in that jacket ; and what 
an Ajax cast there was to his countenance ! It 
certainly did occur to me, to comj)are him with 
William Wallace (Miss Porter's William Wallace) 
and I thought how I would have liked to have seen a 
tussle between them. Of course, we who were small 
boys, limited ourselves to indignant remark, and 
thought * we should like to see them do it ' ; and 
prepared clubs from the wood-shed, after a model 
suggested by a New York boy, who had seen the clubs 
of the PoHcemen. 

There was one scholar, — poor Leslie, who had 
friends in some foreign country, and who occasionally 
received letters bearing a foreign post-mark; — what 



17G Reveries of a Bachelor. 

an extraordinary boy that was ; — what astonishing 
letters ; — what extraordinary parents ! I wondered 
if I should ever receive a letter fi'om ' foreign parts ? ' 
I wondered if I should ever write one : — but this w\as 
too mucli — too absurd ! As if I, Paul, wearing a 
blue jacket with gilt buttons, and number four boots, 
should ever visit those countries spoken of in the 
geographies, and by learned travellers ! No, no ; 
this was too extravagant : but I knew what I would 
do, if I lived to come of age ; — and I vowed that 
I would, — I would go to New York ! 

Number seven was the hospital, and forbidden 
ground ; we had all of us a sort of horror of number 
seven. A boy died there once, and oh, how he 
moaned ; and what a time there w^as when the father 
came ! 

A scholar by the name of Tom Belton, who wore 
linsey gray, made a dam across a little brook by the 
school, and whittled out a saw-mill, that actually 
sawed : he had genius. I expected to see him before 
now^ at the head of American mechanics ; but I learn 
with pain, that he is keeping a grocery store. 

At the close of all the terms we had exhibitions, 
to which all the towns people came, and among them 
the black-eyed Jane, and the pretty Sophia with fur 
around her hat. My great triumph was when I had 
the part of one of Pizarro's chieftains, the eveninn? 



The Mo rating. 177 

before I loft the school. How I did look ! I liad a 
nioiistaclie put on with burnt cork, and whiskers very 
bushy indeed ; and I had he mihtia coat of an 
ensign in the town company, with the skirts pinned 
up, and a short sword very dull, and crooked, which 
belonged to an old gentleman who was said to ha\e 
got it from some privateer, who was said to have taken 
it from some great British Admiral, in the old 
wars : — and the way I can-ied that sword upon the 
platform, and the way I jerked it out, when it came 
to my turn to say, — " battle ! battle ! — then death to 
the armed, and chains for the defenceless !" — was 
tremendous ! 

The morning after, in our di-amatic hats — black felt, 
with turkey feathers, — we took our place upon the top 
of the coach to leave the school. The head master, in 
green spectacles, came out to shake hands w^ith us, — a 
very awful shaking of hands. — Poor gentleman ! — he 
is in his grave now. 

We gave three loud hurrahs " for the old school," as 
the coach started ; and upon the top of the hill that 
overlooks the village, w^e gave another round — and still 
another for the crabbed old fellow, whose apples we 
had so often stolen. — I wonder if old Bulkeley is living 
yet? 

As we got on under the pine trees, I recalled the 

image of the black-eyed Jane, and of the other littlo 

8* 



1*78 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

girl in the corner pew, — and tliouglat liow I would 
come back after the college days were over, — a man, 
with a beaver hat, and a cane, and with a splendid 
barouche, and how I would take the best chamber at 
the inn, and astonish the old school-master by giving 
him a familiar tap on the shoulder ; and how I would 
be the admiration, and the wonder of the pretty girl, in 
the fur-trimmed hat ! Alas, how our thoughts outrun 
our deeds ! 

For long — long years, I saw no more of my old 
school : and when at length the new view came, great 
changes — crashing like tornadoes, — ^had swept over my 
path I I thought no more of startling the villagers, or 
astonishing the black-eyed girl. No, no ! I was con- 
tent to slip quietly through the little town, with only a 
tear or two, as I recalled the dead ones, and mused 
upon the emptiness of life ! 



The Sea. 

As I look back, boyhood with its griefs and cares 
vanishes into the proud statehness of youth. The 
ambition, and the rivalries of the college life, — its 
first boastful importance as knowledge begins to dawn 
on the wakened mind, and the ripe, and enviable 
complacency of its senior dignity, — all scud over my 



Tllr: ^rORXINC. 179 

mcnioiy, like tliis morning breeze along- tlie meadows ; 
and like that too, bear upon tlieir wing, a chlllness — 
as of distant ice-banks. 

Ben has grown almost to manhood : Lilly is li\ing 
in a distant home ; and Isabel is just blooming into 
that sweet age, where w^omanly dignity waits her 
beauty ; — an age that sorely puzzles one who has 
grown up beside her, — making him slow of tongue, 
but very quick of heart ! 

As for the rest let us pass on. 

The sea is around me. The last headlands have 
gone down, under the horizon, hke the city steeples, 
as you lose yourself in the calm of the country, or 
like the great thoughts of genius, as you slip from 
the pages of poets, into your own quiet reverie. 

The waters skirt me right and left : there is no- 
thing but water before, and only water behind. 
Above me are sailing clouds, or the blue vault, which 
we call, with childish license — heaven. The sails, 
white and full, like helping friends are pushing me 
on ; and night and day are distent with the winds 
which come and go — none know whence, and none 
know whither. A land bird flutters aloft, weary 
with long flying ; and lost in a world where are no 
forests but the careening masts, and no foliage but 
the drifts of spray. It cleaves awhile to the smooth 
spars, till urged by some homeward yearning, it bears 



ISO Reveries of a. B a c h e l o k, . 

off in tlie face of the wind, and sinks, and rises over 
the angry waters, initil its strength is gone, and the 
bhie waves gather the poor flutterer to their cold, and 
glassy bosom. 

All the morning I see nothing beyond me but the 
waters, or a tossing company of dolphins ; all the 
noon, unless some white sail — ^like a ghost, stalks the 
horizon, there is still nothing but the rolling seas ; all 
the evening, after the sim has grown big and sunk 
under the water line, and the moon risen, white and 
cold, to glimmer across the tops of the surging ocean, 
— there is nothing but the sea, and the sky, to lead 
off thought, or to crush it with their greatness. 

Hour after hour, as I sit in the moonlight upon the 
taffi-ail, the great waves gather far back, and break, — 
and gather nearer, and break louder, — and gather 
again, and roll down swift and terrible under the 
creaking ship, and heave it up lightly upon their 
swelling surge, and drop it gently to their seething, 
and yeasty cradle, — like an infant in the swaying arms 
of a mother, — or like a shadowy memory, upon the 
billows of manly thought. 

Conscience wakes in the silent nights of ocean ; 
life Hes open like a book, and spreads out as level as 
the sea. Regrets and broken resolutions chase over 
the soul hke swift- winged night-birds, and all the un- 
steady heights and the wastes of action, lift up dis- 



The Morning. 181 

tinct, and clear, from the uneasy, Lnt limpid depths of 
memory. 

Yet within this floating world I am upon, sympa- 
thies are narrowed down ; they cannot range, as 
upon the land, over a thousand objects. You are 
strangely attracted toward some frail girl, whose pal- 
lor has now given place to the rich bloom of the sea 
life. You listen eagerly to the chance snatches of a 
song from below, in the long morning watch. You 
love to see her small feet tottering on the unsteady 
deck ; and you love greatly to aid her steps, and feel 
her weight upon your arm, as the shi]) lurches to a 
heavy sea. 

Hopes and fears knit together pleasantly upon the 
ocean. Each day seems to revive them ; your morning 
salutation, is like a welcome after absence, upon the 
shore ; and each ' good night' has the depth and full- 
ness of a land ' farewell.' And beauty grows u])on 
the ocean ; you cannot certainly say that the face of 
the fair girl-\-oyager is j^rettier than that of Isabel ; — 
oh, no ! — but you are certain that you cast innocent, 
and honest glances upon her, as you steady her walk 
upon the deck, far oftener than at the first ; and ocean 
life, and sympathy, makes her kind ; she does not 
resent your rudeness, one half so stoutly, as she might 
upon the shore. 

She will even linger of an evening — pleading first 



182 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

with the mother, and standing beside you, — her white 
hand not very far from yom's iij^on the rail, — look down 
where the black ship flings off with each plunge, whole 
garlands of emeralds ; or she will look up (thinking 
perhaps you are looking the same way) into the skies, 
in search of some stars — which were her neighbors at 
home. And bits of old tales will come up, as if they 
rode upon the ocean quietude ; and fragments of half 
forgotten poems, tremulously uttered, — either by reason 
of the rolling of the ship, or some accidental touch of 
that white hand. 

But ocean has its storms, when fear will make 
strange, and holy companionship ; and even here, my 
memor}' shifts swiftly and suddenly. 

It is a dreadful night. The passengers are 

clustered, trembling, below. Every plank shakes; 
and the oak ribs groan, as if they suffered with their 
toil. The hands are all aloft ; the captain is forward 
shouting to the mate in the cross-trees, and I am 
clinging to one of the stanchions, by the binnacle. 
The ship is pitching madly, and the waves are top- 
pling up, sometimes as high as the yard-arm, and 
then dipping away with a whirl under our keel, that 
makes every timber in the vessel quiver. The thun- 
der is roaring like a thousand cannon^ ; and at the 
moment, the sky is cleft with a stream of fire, that 
glares over the tops of the waves, and glistens on the 



The Morning. 183 

wet decks, and the spai-s, — lighting up all so plain, that 
I can see the men's faces in the main-top, and catch 
glimpses of the reefers on the yard-arm, clinging like 
death ; — then all is horrible darkness. 

The spray spits ang.ily against the canvass ; the 
waves crash against the weather-bow like mountains ; 
the wind howls through the rigging, or, as a gasket 
gives way, the sail bellying to leeward, splits like the 
crack of a musket. I hear the captain in the lulls, 
screamino;; out orders ; and the mate in the rio-orino; 
screaming them over, until the lightning comes, and 
the thunder, deadening their voices, as if they were 
chirping sparrows. 

In one of the flashes, I see a hand upon the yard- 
ai-m lose his foothold, as the ship gives a plunge ; 
but his arms are clenched around the spar. Before I 
can see any more, the blackness comes, and the 
thunder, with a crash that half deafens me. I think I 
hear a low cry, as the mutterings die away in the 
distance ; and at the next flash of lightning, which 
comes in an instant, I see upon the top of one of the 
waves alongside, the poor reefer who has fallen. The 
lightning glares upon his face. 

But he has caught at a loose bit of running rigging, 
as he fell ; and I see it slipping off" the coil upon 
the deck. I shout madly — man overboard ! — and 
catch the rope, when I can see nothing again. The 



184 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

sea is too liigli, and the man too heavy for me. 
I shout, and shout, and shout, and feel the perspiration 
starting in great beads from my forehead, as the 
hne shps through my fingers. 

Presently the captain feels his way aft, and takes 
hold with me ; and the cook comes, as the coil is 
nearly spent, and we pull together upon him. It is 
desperate work for the sailor ; for the ship is drifting at 
a prodigious rate ; but he clings like a dying man. 

By and by at a flash, we see him on a crest, two 
oars length away from the vessel. 

" Hold on, my man !" shouts the captain. 

" For God's sake, be quick !" says the poor fellow ; 
and he goes down in a trough of the sea. We pull the 
harder, and the captain keeps calling to him to keep up 
courao;e, and hold strono;. But in the hush, we can 
hear him say — " I can't hold out much longer ; — I'm 
most gone !" 

Presently we have brought the man where we 
can lay hold of him, and are only waiting for a good 
lift of the sea to bring him up, when the poor fellow 
groans out, — " It's of no use — I can't — good bye !" 
And a wave tosses the end of the rope, clean upon the 
bulwarks. 

At the next flash, I see him going down under the 
water, 

I grope my way below, sick and faint at heart ; 



The Morn IX Ct. 185 

and wedging myself into my narrow birth, I try to 
sleej). But the thunder and the tossing of the ship, and 
the face of the drowning man, as he said good bye, — ■ 
peering at me from every corner, will not let me sleep. 

Afterward, come quiet seas, over which we boom 
along, leaving in our track, at night, a broad path of 
phosphorescent splendor. The sailors bustle around 
the decks, as if they had lost no comrade; and the 
voyagers losing the pallor of fear, look out earnestly for 
the land. 

At length, my eyes rest upon the coveted fields of 
Britain ; and in a day more, the bright face, looking out 
beside me, sparkles at sight of the sweet cottages, which 
lie along the green Essex shores. Broad sailed yachts, 
looking strangely, yet beautifully, glide upon the waters 
of the Thames, like swans ; black, square-rigged colhers 
from the Tyne, lie grouped in sooty cohorts ; and 
heavy, three-decked Indiaraen, — of which I had read in 
story books, — drift slowly down with the tide. Dingy 
steamers, with white pipes, and with red pipes, whiz 
past us to the sea; and now, my eye rests on the 
great palace of Greenwich ; I see the wooden-legged 
pensioners smoking under the palace walls ; and above 
them upon the hill — as Heaven is true — that old, 
fabulous Greenwich, the great centre of school-boy 
Longitude. 

Pi'esently, from under ? cloud of murky smoke 



186 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

heaves up tlie vast dome of St. Paul's, and the tall 
Column of the Fire, and the white turrets of London 
Tower. Our shijD glides through the massive dock 
gates, and is moored, amid the forest of masts, which 
bears golden fruit for Britons. 

That night, I sleep far away from " the old school," 
and far away from the valley of Hillfarm ; long, and 
late, I toss upon my bed, with sweet visions in my 
mind, of London Bridge, and Temple Bar, and Jane 
Shore, and FalstafF, and Prince Hal, and King Jamie. 
And when at length I fall asleep, my dreams are very 
pleasant, but they carry me across the ocean, away from 
the ship, — away from London, — away even from the 
fair voyager, — to the old oaks, and to the brooks, and 
— to thy side — sweet Isabel 1 



The Father-Land. 

There is a great contrast between the easy 
deshabille of the ocean life, and the prim attire, 
and conventional spirit of the land. In the fii-st, 
there are but few to please, and these few are known, 
and they know us ; upon the shore, there is a world 
to humor, and a world of strangers. In a brilHant 
drawing-room looking out upon the site of old Char- 
ing-Cro.^s, and upon the one-armed Nelson, standing 



The Morxinq. 187 

filoft at liis coil of rope, I take leave of the fair 
voyager of the sea. Her white neglige has given 
place to silks ; and the simple careless coiffe of the 
ocean, is replaced by the rich dressing of a modiste. 
Yet her face has the same bloom upon it ; and her eye 
sparkles, as it seems to me, with a higher pi-ide ; — 
and her little hand has I think a tremulous quiver in 
it, (I am sure my own has) — as I bid her adieu, and 
take up the trail of my wanderings into the heart of 
England. 

Abuse her, as we will, — pity her starving peasantry, 
as we may, — smile at her court pageantry, as much as 
we like, — old England, is dear old England still. Her 
cottaa:e homes, her o-reen fields, her castles, her blazinsr 
firesides, her church spires are as old as song ; and by 
song and story, we inherit them in our hearts. This 
joyous boast, was, I remember, upon my lip, as I first 
trode upon the rich meadow of Runnymede ; and 
recalled that Great Charter wrested from the king, 
which made the first stej^ping stone toward the bounties 
of our western freedom. 

It is a strano'e feelino; that comes over the Western 
Saxon, as he strolls first along the green bye-lanes of 
England, and scents the hawthorn in its April bloom, 
and lingers at some quaint stile, to watch the rooks 
wheeling and cawing around some lofty elm tops, and 
traces the carved gables of some old country mausion 



188 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

tliat lies in tlieir shadow, and hums some fragment of 
charming Enghsh poes}^, that seems made for the 
scene ! This is not sight-seeing, nor travel ; it is 
dreaming sweet dreams, that are fed with the old life 
of Books. 

I wander on, fearing to break the dream, by a swift 
step ; and windhig and rising between the blooming 
hedgerows, I come presently to the sight of some sweet 
valley below me, where a thatched hamlet lies sleeping 
in the April sun, as quietly as the dead lie in history ; 
— no sound reaches me save the occasional clinck of the 
smith's hammer, or the hedgeman's bill-hook, or the 
ploughman's ' ho-tup !' from the hills. At evening, 
listening to the nightingale, I stroll wearily into some 
close-nestled village, that I had seen long ago from a 
rolling height. It is far away from the great lines of 
travel ; — and the children stop their play to have a 
look at me, and the rosy-faced girls peep from behind 
half-opened doors. 

Standing apart, and with a bench on either side of 
the entrance, is the inn of the Eagle and the Falcon, 
— which guardian birds, some native Dick Tinto has 
pictured upon the swinging sign-board at the corner. 
The hostess is half ready to embrace me, and treats 
me hke a prince in disguise. She shows me through 
the tap-room into a httle parlor, with white curtains, 
and with neatlj framed prints of the old patriarchs. 



The Morning. 189 

Uere, alone, beside a brisk fire, kindled with fuize, I 
watcli tlie Avhite flame leaping playfully through the 
black lumps of coal, and enjoy the best fare of the 
Eagle and the Falcon. If too late, or too early for her 
garden stock, the hostess bethinks herself of some 
sni:ill pot of jelly in an out-of-the-way cupboard of the 
house, and setting it temptingly in her prettiest dish, 
she coyly slips it upon the white cloth, with a modest 
regret that it is no better ; and a httle evident satis- 
faction — that it is so good. 

I muse for an hour before the glowing fire, as quiet 
as the cat that has come in, to bear me comj)any ; and 
at bed-time, I find sheets, as fresh as the air of the 
mountains. 

At another time, and many months later, I am 
walking under a wood of Scottish firs. It is near 
night-fall, and the fir tops are swaying, and sighing 
hoarsel}^, in the cool wind of the Northern Highlands. 
There is none of the smiling landscape of England 
about me ; and the crags of Edinbui-gh and Castle 
Stirling, and sweet Perth, in its silver valley, are far 
to the southward. The larchs of Athol and Bruar 
Water, and that highland gem — Dunkeld, are passed. 
I am tired with a morning's tramp over CuUoden 
Moor ; and from the edge of the Avood, there stretches 
before me in the cool gray twilight, broad lields 
of heather. In the middle, there rise against the 



190 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

night-sky, the turrets of a castle ; it is Castle Cawdor, 
■where King Duncan was murdered by Macbeth. 

The sight of it lends a spur to my weary step ; and 
emerging from the wood, I bound over the sprmgy 
heather. In an hour, I clamber a broken wall, and 
come under the frowning shadows of the castle. The 
ivy clambers up here, and there, and shakes its 
uncropped branches, and its dried berries over the 
heavy portal. I cross the moat, and my step mrikes 
the chains of the draw-bridge rattle. All is kept in 
the old state ; only in lieu of the warder's hoi-n, I pull 
at the warder's bell. The echoes ring, and die in the 
stone courts ; but there is no one astir, nor is there 
a light at any of the castle windows. I ring again, and 
the echoes come, and blend with the rising night wind 
that sighs around the turrets, as they sighed that 
night of murder. I fimcy — it must be a fancy, — ■ 
that I hear an owl scream ; I am sure that I heai 
the crickets cry. 

I sit down upon the green bank of the moat ; a little 
dark water hes in the bottom. The walls i-ise from 
it gray, and stern in the deepening shadows. 1 
hum chance passages of Macbeth, listening for the 
echoes — echoes from the wall ; and echoes from that 
far away time, when I stole the fii"st reading of the 
tragic stary. 



The Morning. 191 

" Did'st thou not hear a noise ? 
I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry. 
Did not you speak ? 

When? 

Now. 

As I descended ? 
Ay. 
Hark !" 

And the sharp echo comes back ' hark !' And 

at dead of night, in the thatched cottage under the 
castle walls, where a dark faced, Gaehc woman, in plaid 
tm'ban, is my hostess, I wake, startled by the wind, and 
my trembling lips say involuntarily — ' hark 1' 

Again, three months later, I am in the sweet county 
of Devon. Its valleys are like emerald ; its threads 
of waters stretched over the fields, by their provident 
husbandry, glisten in the broad glow of summer, like 
skeins of silk. A bland old farmer, of the true 
British stamp, is my host. On market days he rides 
over to the old town of Totness in a trim, black 
farmer's cart ; and he wears glossy topped boots, and 
a broad-brimmed white hat. I take a vast deal of 
pleasure in listening to his honest, straight-forward 
talk about the improvements of the day and the state 
of the nation. I sometimes get upon one of his nags, 
and ride off with him over his fields, or visit the 
homes of the laborers, which show their gray roofs, in 



192 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

every charming nook of the landscape. At the parish 
church, I doze against the high pew backs, as I listen 
to the see-saw tones of the drawling curate ; and in my 
half wakeful moments, the withered holly sj^rigs (not 
removed since Easter) grow upon my vision, into 
Christmas boughs, and preach sermons to me — of the 
days of old. 

Sometimes, I wander far over the hills into a neigh- 
boring park ; and spend hours on hours, under the 
sturdy oaks, watching the sleek fallow deer, gazing at 
me with their soft, liquid eyes. The squirrels, too, 
play above me, with their daring leaps, utterly careless 
of my presence, and the pheasants whir away from my 
very feet. 

On one of these random strolls — I remember it very 
well — when I was idling along, thinking of the broad 
reach of water that lay between me, and that old 
forest home, — and beating off the daisy heads with my 
cane, — I heard the tramp of horses, coming up one of 
the forest avenues. The sound was unusual, for the 
fiimily, I had been told, was still in town, and no 
right of way lay through the park. There they 
were, however: — I was sure it must be the family, 
from the careless way in which they came sauntering 
up. 

First, there was a noble hound that came bounding 
toward xae, — gazed a moment, and turned to watch 



T H E M O R N I N a . 193 

the approach of the little cavalcade. Next was an 
elderly gentleman mounted upon a spirited hunter, 
attended by a boy of some dozen years, who managed 
his pony with a grace, that is a part of the English 
boy's education. Then followed two older lads, and a 
travelling phseton, in which sat a couple of elderly 
ladies. But what most drew my attention was a 
gni-lish figure, that rode beyond the carriage, upon a 
^leek-limbed gray. There was something in the easy 
grace of her attitude, and the rich glow that lit up her 
face — heightened as it was, by the little black riding 
cap, relieved with a single flowing plume, — that kept 
my eye. It was strange, but I thought that I had 
seen such a figure before, and such a face, and such 
an eye ; and as I made the ordinary salutation of a 
stranger, and caught her smile, I could have sworn that 
it was she — my fair companion of the ocean. The 
truth flashed upon me in a moment. She was to visit, 
she had told me, a friend in the south of England ; — 
and this was the fiiend's home ; — and one of the ladies 
of the carriage was her mother ; and one of the lads, 
the school-boy brother, who had teased her on th*^ 
sea. 

I recal now perfectly, her frank manner, as she un- 
gloved her hand to bid me welcome. I strolled beside 
them to the steps. Old Devon had suddenly renewed 

its beauties for me. I had much to tell her, of the 
9 



194 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

little out-lying nooks, wliich ray wayward feet had led 
me to : and she — as much to ask. My stay with the 
bland old farmer lengthened ; and two days hospitali- 
ties at the Park ran over into three, and four. There 
was hard galloping down those avenues ; and new 
strolls, not at all lonely, under the sturdy oaks. The 
long summer twilight of England used to find a very 
happy fellow lingering on the garden terrace, — looking, 
now at the rookeiy, where the belated birds quarreled 
for a resting place, and now down the long forest vista, 
gray with distance, and closed with the white spire of 
Madbury church. 

English country life gains fast upon one — very fast ; 
and it is not so easy, as in the drawing-room of Char- 
ing Cross, to say — adieu ! But it is said — very sadly 
said ; for God only knows how long it is to last. And 
as I rode slowly down toward the lodge after my leave- 
taking, I turned back again, and again, and again. I 
thought I saw her standing still upon the terrace, 
though it was almost dark ; and I thought — it could 
hardly have been an illusion — that I saw somethnig 
white waving from her hand. 

Her name — as if I could forget it — was Caroline ; 
her mother called her — Carry. I wondered how it 
would seem for me to call her — Carry ! I tried it ; — 
it sounded well. I tried it — over and over, — until I 
came too near the Iodide. There I threw a half 



The Morning. 195 

crown to the woman who opened the gate for me. 
She curtsied low, and said — " God bless you, sir !" 

I hked her for it ; I would have given a guinea for 
it : and that night, — whether it was the old woman's 
benediction, or the waving scarf upon the terrace, I 
do not know ; — but there was a charm upon my 
thought, and my hope, as if an angel had been near 
me. 

It passed away though in my dreams ; for I 
dreamed that I saw the sweet face of Bella in an 
English park, and that she wore a black velvet riding 
cap, with a plume ; and I came up to her and 
murmured, very sweetly, I thought, — " Carry, dear 
Carry !" and she started, looked sadly at me, and 
turned away. I i-an after her, to kiss her as I did 
when she sat upon my mother's lap, on the day when 
she came near drowning : I longed to tell her, as I did 
then — I do love you. But she turned her tearful face 
itpon me, I dreamed ; and then, — I saw no more. 



A Roman Girl, 

— 1 REMEMBER tlic very words — " non loarlo Frmi- 
cese, Sif/nore, — I do not speak French, Signor" — 
said the fctout lady, — " but my daughter, perhaps, will 
understand vou." 



1U(3 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

And she called — " Enrica ! — Enrica ! venite, suhito ! 
c' e un forestierer 

And the daughter came, her light brown hair frilling 
carelessly over her shoulders, her rich hazel eye 
twinkling and full of life, the colour coming and going 
upon her transparent cheek, and her bosom heaving 
with her quick step. With one hand she put back the 
scattered locks that had fallen over her forehead, while 
she laid the other gently, upon the arm of her 
mother, and asked in that sweet music of the south — 
" cosa volete^ mamma .^" 

It was the prettiest picture I had seen in many a 
day ; and this, notwithstanding I was in Rome, and had 
come that very morning from the Palace of Borghese. 

The stout lady was my hostess, and Eni-ica — so fjiir, 
so young, so unlike in her beauty, to other Italian 
beauties, was my landlady's daughter. The house 
was one of those tall houses — very, very old, which 
stand along the eastern side of the Corso, looking out 
npon the Piazzo di Colonna. The staircases were 
verv tall, and dirty, and they were narrow and dark. 
Pour flights of stone steps led up to the corridor 
wbore they lived. A little trap was in the door ; and 
there was a bell-rope, at the least touch of which, 
was almost sure to hear tripping feet run along the 
sr>one floor within, and then to see the trap thrown 
,r!' br;:!:, and those deep hazel eyes looking out 



The Morning. 197 

upon me ; and tlien the door would open, and along 
the corridor, under the daughter's guidance, (until I 
had learned the way,) I passed to my Roman home. I 
was a long time learning the way. 

My cliamber looked out upon the Corso, and I could 
catch from it a glimpse of the top of the tall column of 
Antoninus, and of a fragment of the palace of the Go- 
Ycrnor. My parlor, which was separated from the 
apartments of the family by a narrow corridoi-, looked 
upon a small court, hung around with balconies. 
From the upper one, a couple of black-eyed girls are 
occasionally looking out, and they can almost read the 
title of my book, when I sit by the window. Below 
are three or four blooming rar/uzze, who ai-e dark-eyed, 
and have Roman luxuriance of hair. The youngest is 
a friend of our Enrica, and is of course frequently look- 
ing up, with all the innocence in the world, to see if 
Enrica may be looking out. 

Night after night, a bright blaze glows upon ray 
hearth, of the alder faggots which they bring from the 
Albanian hills. Night after night too, the family come 
in, to aid my blundering speech, and to enjoy the rich 
sparkling of my faggot fire. Little Cesare, a dark-faced 
Italian boy, takes up his position with pencil and slate, 
and draws by the light of the blaze genii and castles. 
The old one-eyed teacher of Enrica, lays his snuflf box 
upon the table, and his handkerchief across his 



198 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

lap, and witli his spectacles upon liis nose, and liis 
big fingers on the lesson, runs through the French 
tenses of the verb amare. The father a sallow- 
faced, keen-eyed man, with true Italian visage, sits 
with his arms upon the elbows of his chair, and talks 
of the Pope, or of the weather. A spruce count 
from the Marches of Ancona, wears a heavy watch 
seal, and reads Dante with furore. The mother, with 
arms akimbo, looks proudly upon her daughter, and 
counts her, as well she may, a gem among the Roman 
beauties. 

The table was round, with the fire blazing on one 
side ; there was scarce room for but three upon the 
other. Signor il maestro was one — then Enrica, and 
next — how well I remember it — came myself. For I 
could sometimes help Enrica to a word of French ; and 
far oftener she could help me to a word of Italian. 
Her face was rich, and full of feeling ; I used greatly to 
love to watch the puzzled expressions that passed over 
her forehead, as the sense of some hard phrase escaped 
her ; — and better still, to see the happy smile, as she 
caught at a glance, the thought of some old scholastic 
Frenchman, and transferred it into the liquid melody 
of her speech. 

She had seen just sixteen summers, and only that 
very autumn was escaped from the thraldom of a 
convent, upon the skirts of Rome. She knew nothing 



The Morning. 199 

of life, but tlio life of feeling; and all tlioiights of 
happiness, lay as yet in her childish hopes. It was 
pleasant to look upon her face ; and it was still move 
pleasant to listen to that sweet Roman voice. What a 
rich flow of superlatives, and endearing diminutives, 
from those vermilHon lips ! Who would not have 
loved the study, and who would not have loved — 
without meaning it — the teacher ? 

In those days, I did not linger long at the tables 
of lame Pietro in the Via Condotti ; but would hurry 

back to my little Roman parlor the fire was so 

pleasant ! And it was so pleasant to greet Enrica 
with her mother, even before the one-eyed maestro 
had come in ; and it was pleasant to unfold the book 
between us, and to lay my hand upon the page — a 
small page — where hers lay already. And when she 
pointed wrong, it was pleasant to correct her — over 
and over; — insisting, that her hand should be here, 
and not there, and lifting those little fingers from one 
page, and putting them down upon the other. And 
sometimes, half provoked with my fault-finding, she 
\^ ould pat my hand smartly with hers ; — but when I 
looked in her face to know what that could mean, she 
would meet my eye with such a kind submission, and 
half earnest regret, as made me not only pardon the 
offence, — but tempt me to provoke it again. 

Through aU the days of Cai-nival, when I rode 



200 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

pelted with confetti^ and pelting back, my eyes used to 
wander up, from a long way off, to that tall house 
upon the Corso, where I was sui'e to meet, again and 
again, those forgiving eyes, and that soft brown hair, 
aU gathered under the little brown sombrero, set off 
with one pm-e white plume. And her hand fuU of 
bon-bons, she would shake at me threateningly ; and 
laugh — a musical laugh — as I bowed my head to the 
assault, and recovering from the shower of missiles, 
would turn to throw my stoutest bouquet at her bal- 
cony. At night, I would bear home to the Roman 
parlor, my best trophy of the day, as a guerdon for 
Eurica ; and Enrica would be sure to render in 
acknowledgment, some carefully hidden flowers, the 
prettiest that her beauty had won. 

Sometimes upon those Carnival nights, she arrays 
herself in the costume of the Albanian water-carriei-s ; 
and nothing, one would think could be prettier, than 
the laced crimson jacket, and the strange head gear 
with its trinkets, and the short skirts leaving to view 
as delicate an ankle as could ba found in Rome. 
Upon another night, she glides into my little parlor, 
as we sit by the blaze, in a close velvet boddice, and 
with a Swiss hat caught up by a looplet of silver, and 
adorned with a full blown rose — nothing you think 
could be prettier than this. Again, in one of her 
girlish freaks, she robes herself like a nun ; and with 



The Morning. 201 

Ok^ heavy black serge, for dress, and the funereal 
A'eil, — relieved only by the plain white ruffle of her 
cap — you wish she were always a nun. But the wish 
vanishes, when you see her in a pure white muslin, 
with a wreath of orange blossoms about her forehead, 
and a single white rose-bud in her bosom. 

Upon the little balcony Enrica keeps a pot or two 
of flowers, which bloom all winter long : and each 
morning, I find upon my table a fresh rose bud ; each 
night, I bear back for thank-offering, the prettiest 
bouquet that can be found in the Via Condotti. The 
quiet fire-side evenings come back ; — in which my 
hand seeks its wonted place upon her book ; and m-y 
other, will creep around upon the back of Enrica's 
chair, and Enrica will look indignant, — and then all 
forgiveness. 

One day I received a large pacquet of letters : — ■ 

ah, what luxury to lie back in my big arm-chair, 

there before the crackling ^iggots, with the pleasant 

rustle of that silken dress beside me, and run 

over a second, and a third time, those mute paper 

missives, which bore to me over so many miles of 

water, the words of greeting, and of love ! It would 

be worth travelling to the shores of the JEgean, to 

find one's heart quickened into such life as the ocean 

letters will make. Enrica threw down her book, 

and wondered what could be in them ? — and snatched 
9* 



202 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

one from my hand, and looked with sad, but vain 
intensity over that strange scrawl. — AVhat can it 
\,Q ? — said she ; and she laid her finger upon the little 
half Hne— " Dear Paul." 

I told her it was — " Caro mio.^^ 
Enrica laid it upon her lap, and looked in my face. ; 
" It is from your mother ?" said she. 
« No," said I. 

" From your sister ?" said she. 
« Alas, no !" 

" II vostro fratello, dunque P 

" JN'emmeno''' — said I — " not from a brother either." 
She handed me the letter, and took up her book ; 
and presently she laid the book down again ; and 
looked at the letter, and then at me ; — and went out. 
She did not come in again that evening; in the 
morning, there was no rose-bud on vaj table. And 
when I came at night, with a bouquet from Pietro's 
at the corner, she asked me — " who had written my 
letter ?" 

" A very dear friend," said I. 
"A lady?" continued she. 
« A lady,'' said I. 

" Keep this bouquet for her," said she, and put it 
in my hands. 

" But, Eni-ica, she has plenty of flowers : she 



The Morning. 203 

lives among tliem, aiid eacli morning her cliilJren 
gather them by scores to make garlands of." 

Emica put her fingers within my hand to take again 
the bouquet ; and for a moment I held both fingers 
and flowers. 

The flowers slipped out first. 

I had a friend at Rome in that time, who afterward 
died between Ancona and Corinth : we were sitting one 
day upon a block of tufa in the middle of the CoHseum, 
looking up at the shadows which the waving shrubs 
upon the southern wall, cast upon the ruined arcades 
within, and listening to the chirping sparrows that 
lived upon the wreck, — when he said to me suddenly 
- — " Paul, you love the Italian girl. 

" She is very beautiful," said I. 

"I think she is beginning to love you," said he, 
soberly. 

" She has a very warm heart, I beheve," said I. 

" Aye," said he. 

*' But her feelings are those of a girl," continued I. 

" They are not," said my friend ; and he laid his 
hand upon my knee, and left off di'awiiig diagrams 
with his cane, — " I have seen, Paul, more than you of 
this southern nature. The Italian girl of fifteen 
is a woman ; — an impassioned, sensitive, tender 
weature — yet still a woman ; you are loving — if you 



204 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

love — a full-grown heart ; she Ls loving — if she loves — 
as a ripe heart should." 

" But I do not think that either is wholly true," 
said I. 

" Try it," said he, setting his cane down firmly, and 
looking in my face. 

" How ?" returned I. 

"I have three weeks upon my hands," continued 
he. " Go with me into the Appenines ; leave your 
home in the Corso, and see if you can forget in the mr 
of the mountains, your bright-eyed Roman girl !" 

I was pondering for an answer, when he went on : — ^ 
" It is better so : love as you might, that southern 
nature with all its passion, is not the material to build 
domestic happiness upon ; nor is your northern habit — 
whatever you may think at your time of life, the one to 
cherish always those passionate sympathies which aro 
bred by this atmosphere, and their scenes." 

One moment my thought ran to my little parlor, 
and to that fairy figure, and to that sweet angel face : 
and then, like lightning it traversed oceans, and fed 
upon the old ideal of home, and brought images to my 
eye of lost — dead ones, who seemed to be stirring on 
heavenly wings, in that soft Roman atmosphere, with 
greeting, and with beckoning. 

" I will go with you," said I. 

The father shrugged his shoulders, when I told 



The Morning. 205 

l..in I was going to the mountains, and wanted a guide. 
His wife said it would be cold upon the hills, for the 
winter was not ended. Enrica said it would be warm 
in the valleys, for the spring was coming. The old 
man drummed with his fino-ers on the table, and shruo;- 
ged his shoulders again, but said nothing. 

My landlady said I could not ride. Cesare said it 
would be hard walking. Enrica asked papa, if there 
would be any danger? And again the old man 
shrugged his shouldei's. Again I asked him, if he 
knew a man who would serve us as guide among the 
Appenines ; and finding me determined, he shrugged 
his shoulders, and said he would find one the next 
day. 

As I passed out at evening, on my way to the 
Piazzo near the Monte Citorio, where stand the 
carriages that go out to Tivoli, Enrica glided up to 

me, and whispered — " aA, mi dispiace tanto tanto^ 

Signor /" 

The Appenines. 

I SHOOK her hand, and in an hour afterward was 
passing with my friend, by the Trajan forum, toward 
the deep shadow of San Maggiore, which lay in our 
way to the mountains. At sunset, we were wandering 
over the ruin of Adrian's villa, which lies upon the 



206 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

first step of tlie Appenines. Behind us, the vesper 
bells of Tivoli v^eve sounding, and their echoes float- 
ing sweetly under the broken arches ; before us, 
stretching all the way to the horizon, lay the broad 
Campagna; while in the middle of its gi*eat waves, 
turned violet-colored, by the hues of twihght, rose the 
grouped towers of the Eternal City; and lording it 
among them all, hke a giant, stood the black dome of 
St. Peter's. 

Day after day we stretched on over the mountains, 
leaving the Campagna far behind us. Rocks and 
stones, huge and ragged, he strewed over the surface 
right and left ; deep yawning valleys lie in the 
shadows of mountains, that loom up thousands of 
feet, bearing perhaps upon their tops old castellated 
towns, perched like birds' nests. But mountain and 
valley are blasted and scarred ; the forests even, are 
Qot continuous, but struggle for a livelihood ; as if 
the brimstone fire that consumed Nineveh, had with- 
ered their energies. Sometimes, our eyes rest on a 
great white scar of the broken calcareous rock, on 
which the moss cannot grow, and the lizards dare not 
creep. Then we see a cliff beetling far p,loft, with 
the shining walls of some monastery of holy men glis- 
tening at its base. The wayside brooks do not seem 
to be the gentle offspring of bountiful hills, but the 
remnants of something greater, whose g)*eatness has 



The Morxing. 207 

expired ; — they are turLid rills, rolling in the bottom of 
yawning chasms. Even the shrubs have a look, as 
if the Volscian war-horse had trampled them down to 
death ; and the primroses and the violets by the 
mountain path, alone look modestly beautiful amid 
the ruin. 

Sometimes, we loiter in a valley, above which the 
goats are browsing on the clifts, and listen to the sweet 
pastoral pipes of the Appenines. "We see the shep- 
herds in their rough skin coats, high over our heads. 
Their herds are feeding, as it seems, on ledges of a 
hand's breadth. The sweet sound floats and lingers 
in the soft atmosphere, without a breath of wind to 
bear it away, or a noise to disturb its melody. The 
shadows slant more and more as we linger ; and the 
kids begin to group together. And as we wander on, 
through the stunted vineyards in the bottom of the 
valley, the sweet sound flows after us, like a river of 
sono-, — nor leaves us, till the kids have vanished in tho 
distance, and the chfis themselves, become one dark 
wall of shadow. 

At night, in some little meagre mountain town, we 
stroll about in the narrow pass-ways, or wander under 
the heavy arches of the mountain churches. Shuffling 
old women grope in and out; dim lamps glimmer 
faintly at the side altars, shedding horrid hght upon 
painted images of the dying Christ. Or perhaps, 



208 Keveries of a Bachelor. 

to make the old pile more solemn, tliere stands 
some bier in the middle, with a figure or two Ivneeling 
fit the foot, and ragged boys move stealthily under the 
shadows of the columns. Presently comes a young 
priest, in black robes, and lights a taper at the foot, 
and another at the head — for there is a dead man 
on the bier ; and the parched, thin features look 
awfully under the yellow light of the tapers, in 
the gloom of the great building. It is very, very 
damp in the church, and the body of the dead man 
seems to make the air heavy, so we go out into 
the starlio-ht asrain. 

In the morning, the western slopes wear broad 
shadows, and the frosts crumple, on the herbage, to 
our tread : across the valley, it is like summer ; and 
the birds — for there are songstei*s in the Appenines, — ■ 
make summer music. Their notes blend softly with 
the faint sounds of some far oflf convent bell, tolling 
for morning mass, and strike the frosted and shaded 
mountain side, with a sweet echo. As we toil on, 
and the shaded hills begin to glow in the sunshine, 
we pass a train of mules, loaded with wine. We 
have seen them an hour before — little black dots 
twining along the white streak of foot-way upon the 
mountain above us. "We lost them as we began to 
ascend, until a wild snatch of an Appenine song 
tui'ned our eyes up, and there, straggling through the 



The M r n I n q 209 

brush, tLey appeared again ; a foot slip would have 
brought the mules and wine casks rolling upon us. 
We keep still, holding by the brushwood, to let them 
pass. An hour more, and we see them toiling slowly, 
— mule and muleteer, — big dots, and httle dots, — far 
down where we have been before. The sun is hot and 
smoking on them in the bare valleys ; the sun is hot 
and smoking on the hill-side, where we are toihng over 
the broken stones. I thought of little Enrica, when 
she said the spring was coming ! 

Time and again, we sit down together — my friend 
and I — upon some fragment of rock, under the broad- 
armed chestnuts, that fringe the lower skirts of the 
mountains, and talk through the hottest of the noon, of 
the warriors of Sylla, and of the Sabine women, — but 
oftener — of the pretty peasantry, and of the sweet-faced 
Eoman girl. He too tells me of his life and loves, and 
of the hopes that he misty and grand before him : — 
little did we think that in so few years, his hopes would 
be gone, and his body lying low in the Adriatic, or 
tost with the drift upon the Dalmatian shores ! Little 
did I think, that here under the ancestral wood, — still 
a wishful and blundering mortal, I should be gathering 
up the shreds, that memory can catch of our Appe- 
nine wandering, and be wea^dng them into my bachelor 
dreams. 

Away again upon the quick wing of thought, I fol- 



210 Reveries of a. BAcnELOH. 

low our steps, as after weeks of wandering, we gained 
once moi-e a height that overlooked the Campagna — ■ 
and saw the sun setting on its edge, throwing into 
rehef the dome of St. Peter's, and blazing in a red 
stripe upon the watei-s of the Tiber. 

Below us was Palestrina — the Prseneste of the poets 
and philosophers ; — the dwelling place of — I know not 
how many — Emperors. We went straggling through 
the dirty streets, searching for some tidy-looking osteria. 
At length, we found an old lady, w^ho could give us a 
bed, but no dinner. My friend dropped in a chair dis- 
heartened. A snub-looking priest came out to condole 
with us. 

And could Palestrina, — the frigidum Prceneste of 
Horace, which had entertained over and over, the 
noblest of the Colonna, and the most noble Adrian — 
could Palestrina not furnish a dinner to a tired 
traveller ? 

" Si, Signore^'' said the snub-looking priest. 

" Si^ Signorino^^ said the neat old lady ; and 
away we went upon a new search. And we found 
bright and happy faces ; — especially the little girl of 
twelve years, who came close by me as I ate, and 
afterward strung a garland of marigolds, and put it 
on my head. Then there was a bright-eyed boy of 
fourteen, who wrote his name, and those of the whole 
family, upon a fly leaf of mj- book : and a pretty, 



The Morning. 211 

saucy-looking" girl of sixteen, who peeped n long time 
from behind the kitchen door, but before the evenino- 
was gone, she was in the chair beside me, and had 
written hei* name — Carlotta — upon the first leaf of my 
journal. 

When I woke, the sun w^as up. From my bed 1 
could see over the town, the thin, lazy mists lying on 
the old camp-ground of Pyrrhus ; beyond it, w^ere the 
mountains, which hide Frascati, and Monte-Cavi. 
There was old Colonna too, that — 

Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest 
Of purple Appenine. 

As the mist lifted, and the sun brightened the 
plain, I could see the ]-oad, along which Sylla came 
fuming and maddened after the Mithridaten war. I 
could see, as I half dreamed and half-slept, the fright- 
ened peasantry whooping to their long-horned cattle, as 
they drove them on tumultuously up through the gate- 
ways of the town ; and women with babies in their 
arms, and children scowhng with fear and hate — all 
trooping fast and madly, to escape the hand of the 
Avenger ; — alas ! ineffectually, for Sylla murdered 
them, and pulled down the walls of their town — the 
proud Palestrina ! 

I had a queer fancy of seeing the nobles of Ptome 



212 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

led on by Stefano Colonna, grouping along tlie plain, 
their corslets flashing out of the mists, — their pen- 
nants dashing above it, — coming up fast, and still as 
the wind, to make the Mural Prseneste, their strong- 
hold against the Last of the Tribunes. And strangely 
mingling fiction with fact, I saw the brother of Walter 
de Montreal, with his noisy and bristling army, crowd 
over the Campagna, and put up his white tents, and 
hang out his showy banners, on the grassy knolls that 
lay nearest my eye. 

But the knolls were all quiet ; there was not 

so much as a strolling contad'mo on them, to whistle 
a mimic fife- note. A little boy from the inn went 
with me upon the hill, to look out upon the town and 
the wide sea of land below ; and whether it was the 
soft, w^arm April sun, or the gray ruins below me, or 
whether the wonderful silence of the scene, or some 
wild gush of memory, I do not know, but something 
made me sad. 

" Perche cosi penseroso ? — why so sad ?" said the 
quick-eyed boy. " The air is beautiful, the scene is 
beautiful ; Signore is young, why is he sad ?" 

" And is Giovanni never sad ?" said I. 

" Quasi mai^'' said the boy, " and if I could travel as 
Signore, and see other countries, I would be always 
gay." 

" May you be always that I" said I. 



The Morning. 213 

The good wish touched him ; he took me by the 
arms, and said — " Go home with me, Signore ; you 
were happy at the inn last nip;ht ; go back, and we will 
make you gay again !" 

• If we could be always boys ! 

I thanked him in a way that saddened him. We 
passed out shortly after from the city gates, and strode 
on over the rolling plain. Once or twice we turned 
back to look at the rocky heights beneath which lay 
the ruined town of Palestrina ; — a city that defied 
Rome, — that had a king before a ploughshare had 
touched the Capitoline, or the Janiculan hill ! The ivy 
was covering up richly the Etruscan foundations, and 
there was a quiet over the whole place. The smoke was 
rising straight into the sky from the chimney tops ; a 
peasant or two, were going along the road with don- 
keys ; beside this, the city was, to all appearance, a 
dead city. And it seemed to me that an old monk, 
whom I could see with my glass, near the little chapel 
above the town, might be going to say mass for the 
soul of the dead city. 

And afterward, when we came near to Rome, and 
passed under the temple tomb of Metella, — my friend 
said — " And will you go back now to your home ? or 
will you set off with me to-morrow for Ancona ?" 

" At least, I must say adieu," returned I. 

" God speed yr.i !" said he, and we parted upon tie 



214 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

Piazza di Venezia, — he for his last mass at St. Peters, 
and I for the tall house upon the Corso. 



Enric A. 

I HEAR iier glancing feet, the moment I have tinkled 
the bell ; — and there she is, with her brown hair ga- 
thered into braids, and her eyes full of joy, and greet- 
ing. And as I walk with the mother to the window to 
look at some pageant that is passing, — she steals up 
behind, and passes her arm around me, with a quick 
electric motion, and a gentle pressure of welcome — that 
tells more than a thousand words. 

It is a pageant of death that is passing below. Far 
down the street, we see heads thrust out of the win- 
dows, and standing in bold relief against the red torch- 
light of the moving train. Below, dim figures are 
gathering on the narrow side ways to look at the 
solemn spectacle. A hoarse chant rises louder, and 
louder ; and half dies in the night air, and breaks out 
again with new, and deep bitterness. 

Now, the first torch-light under us shines plainly 
on faces in the windows, and on the kneeling women 
in the street. First, come old retainers of the dead 
one, bearing long blazing flambeaux. Then comes a 
company of pnests, two by two, bare-headed, and 



The MoiiNiNG. 215 

every second one ^vith a lighted torch, and all are 
chanting. 

Next, is a brotherhood of friars in blown cloaks, 
with sandalled feet; — and the red-light streams full 
upon their grizzled heads. They add their heavy gut- 
tural voices to the chant, and pass slowly on. 

Then comes a company of priests, in white muslin 
capes, and black robes, and black caps, — bearing books 
in their hands, wide open, and lit up plainly by 
the torches of churchly servitors, who march beside 
them; and from the books, the priests chant loud 
and solemnly. Now the music is loudest; and the 
friars take up the dismal notes from the white-capped 
priests, and the priests before catch them from the 
brown-robed friars, and mournfully the sound rises up 
between the tall buildings,— into the blue night-sky 
that hes between Heaven and Rome. 

— " Vede — vcde /" — says Cesare ; and in a blaze of 
the red-torch fire, comes the bier, borne on the necks 
of stout friars ; and on the bier, is the body of a dead 
man, habited like a priest. Heavy plumes of black 
wave at each corner. 

— " Hist !" — says my landlady. 

The body is just under us. Enrica crosses herself; 
her smile is for the moment gone. Gesare's boy-ftice 
is grown suddenly earnest. We could see the pale 
youthful features of the dead man. The glaring flam- 



21G II EYERIES OF A B A CHE I. OH. 

beaux, sent their flaunting streams of unearthly light 
)ver the wan visage of the sleeper. A thousand eyes 
»7ere looking on him ; but his face cai-eless of them all, 
wds turned up, sti-aight toward the stars. 

Still the chant rises ; and companies of priests fol- 
low the bier, hke those who had gone before. Friars, 
in brown cloaks, and prelates and Carmelites come 
after — all with torches. Two by two — their voices 
growing hoarse — they tramp, and chant. 

For a while the voices cease, and you can hear the 
rusthng of their robes, and their foot-falls, as if your ear 
was to the earth. Then the chant rises again, as they 
glide on in a wavy, shining line, and rolls back 
over the death-train, like the howling of a wind in 
winter. 

As they pass, the faces vanish from the windows. 
The kneeling women upon the pavement, rise up, 
mindful of the paroxysm of Life once more. The 
groups in the doorways scatter. But their low voices 
do not drown the voices of the host of mourners, and 
their ghost-like music. 

T look long upon the blazing bier, trailing under the 
deep shadows of the Roman palaces, and at the stream 

of torches, winding like a glittering, scaled serpent. • 

It is a priest — say I to my landlady, as she closes the 
window. 

" No, signor, — a young n"an never raan-ied, and so 



The Morning. 217 

by vii-tuo of his condition, they put on him the priest- 
ix)bes." 

" So I" — says the pretty Enrica — " if I should die, 
would be robed in white, as you saw me on a cai-nival 
night, and be followed by nuns for sisters." 

" A long way off may it be, Enrica !" 

She took my hand in hers, and pressed it An Italian 
girl does not fear to talk of death ; and we were talking 
of it still, as we walked back to my little parlor — ^my 
hand all the time in hers — and sat down by the blazo 
of my fire. 

It was holy week — never had Enrica looked more 
sweetly than in that black dress, — under that long, 
dark veil of the days of Lent. Upon the broad 
pavement of St. Peter's, — where the people flocking 
by thousands, made only side groups about the altars 
of the vast temple — I have watched her kneeling, 
beside her mother, — ^her eyes bent down, her lips 
moving earnestly, and her whole figure tremulous with 
deep emotion. Wandering around among the halber- 
diers of the Pope, and the court coats of Austria, and 
the bare-footed pilgrims with sandal, shell and staff, I 
would sidle back again, to look upon that kneeling 
figure ; and leaning against the huge columns of 

the church, would dream even as I am dreaming 

now. 

At night-fall, I urge my way into the Sistino 



218 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

Chapel : Enrica is beside me, — looking with me upon 
the gaunt figures of the Judgment of Angelo. They 
are chanting the Miserere. The twelve candle-sticks by 
the altar are put out one by one, as the service 
continues. The sun has gone down, and only the red 
glow of twilight steals through the dusky windows. 
There is a pause, and a brief reading from a red- 
cloaked cardinal, and all kneel down. She kneels 
beside me : and the sweet, mournful flow of the 
Miserere begins again, — growing in force, and depth, 
till the whole chapel rings, and the balcony of the 
choir trembles : then, it subsides again into the low 
soft wail of a single voice — so prolonged — so tremulous, 

and so real, that the heart aches, and the teai-s start 

for Christ is dead ! 

Lingering yet, the wail dies not wholly, but 



just as it seemed expiring, it is caught up by another 
and stronger voice that carries it on, plaintive as 
ever ; — nor does it stop with this — for just as you 
looked for silence, three voices more begin the lament 
— sweet, touching, mcurnful voices, — and bear it up 
to a full cry, when the whole choir catch its burden, 
and make the lament chano-e into the wailins: of a 
multitude — wild, shrill, hoarse — with swift chants inter- 
vening, as if agony had given force to anguish. 
Then, sweetly, slowly, voice by voice, note by note, 
the wailings sink into the low, tender, moan of a 



The Morning. 210 

single singer — faltering, tremulous, as if tears checked 
the utterance ; and sweUing out, as if despair sustained 
it. 

It was dark in the chapel, when we went out; 
voices were low, Enrica said nothing 1 could say- 
nothing. 

I was to leave Rome after Easter ; I did not love to 
speak of it — ^nor to think of it. Rome — that old city, 
with all its misery, and its fallen state, and its broken 
palaces of the Empire — grows upon one's heart. The 
fringing shrubs of the coliseum, flaunting their blos- 
soms at the tall beggar-men in cloaks, who gi'ub below, 
— the sun ghmmering over the mossy pile of the House 
of Nero, — the sweet sunsets from the Pincian, that 
make the broad pine-tops of the Janiculan, stand sharp 
and dark against a sky of gold, cannot easily be left 
behuid. And Enrica with her silver brown hair, and 
the silken fillet that bound it, — and her deep hazel 
eyes, — and her white, delicate fingere, — and the blue 

veins chasing over her fair temples ah, Easter is too 

near ! 

But it comes ; and passes with the glory of St. 
Peter's — lighted from top to bottom. With Enrica — ^I 
saw it from the Ripetta, as it loomed up in the distance, 
like a city on fii-e. 

The next day, I bring home my last bunch of 
flowers, and with it a little richly-cliased Roman ring. 



220 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

No fii'e blazes on tlie hearth — but they are all there. 
Warm days have come, and the summer air, even 
now, hangs heavy with fever, in the hollows of the 
plain. 

I heard them stirring early on the morning on which 
I was to go away. I do not think I slept veiy well 
myself — nor very late. Never did Enrica look more 
beautiful — ^never. All her Carnival robes, and the sad 
drapery of the Friday of Crucifixon could not so 
adorn her beauty as that neat morning dress, and thai 
simple rosebud she wore upon her bosom. She gave 
it to me — the last — ^with a trembling hand. I did not, 
for I could not, thank her. She knew it ; and her 
eyes were full. 

The old man kissed my cheek — it was the Roman 
custom, but the custom did not extend to the Roman 
girls ; at least not often. As I passed down the Corso, 
I looked back at the balcony, where she stood in the 
time of Carnival, in the brown Sombrero, with the 
white plume. I knew she would be there now ; and 
there she was. My eyes dwelt upon the vision, very 
loth to leave it ; and after my eyes had lost it, my 
heart clung to it, — there, where my memory clings 
now. 

At noon, the carriage stopped upon the hills, to- 
ward Soracte, that overlooked Rome. There was a 
stunted pine tree grew a little way from the road, and 



The Morning. 221 

I sat down under it, — for I wished no dinner — and 
I looked back with strange tumult of feeling, upon 
the sleeping city, with the gray, billowy sea of the 
Campagna, lying around it. 

I seemed to see Enrica — the Roman girl, in that 
morning dress, with her brown hair in its silken fillet ; 
— but the rose-bud that was in her bosom, was now 
in mine. Her silvery voice too, seemed to float past 
me, bearing snatches of Roman songs ; — but the songs 
were sad and broken. 

After all, this is sad vanity ! — thought I : and 

yet if I had espied then some returning carriage 
going down toward Rome, I will not say — but that I 
should have hailed it, and taken a place, — and gone 
back, and to tlrls day, perhaps — have Hved at Rome. 

But the vetturino called me ; the coach was ready ; 
— ^I gave one more look toward the dome that guarded 
the sleeping city: and then, we galloped down the 
mountain, on the road that lay towards Perugia, and 
Lake Thrasimene. 

Sweet Enrica ! art thou living yet ? Or hast 

thou passed away to that Silent Land, where the 
good sleep, and the beautiful ? 



The visions of the Past fade. The morning breeze 
has died upon the meadow ; the Bob-o'-Lincoln sits 
swaying on the willow tufts — ^singing ny longer. The 



222 Reveries of a Bacuelor 

trees lean to tlio brook ; but iho shadows fall straight 
and dense upon the silver stream. 

Noon has broken into the middle sky ; and Morn- 
ing is gone. 



n. 

Noon. 

THE Noon is sliort ; the sun never loiters on the 
inei-idian, nor does the shadow on the old dial 
by the garden, stay long at XIT. The Present, like 
the noon, is only a point ; and a point so fine, that it 
is not measurable by the grossness of action. Thou^^ht 
alone is delicate enough to tell the breadth of the 
Present. 

The Past belongs to God : the Present only Is 
ours. And short as it is, there is more in it, and of it, 
than we can well manage. That man who can grapple 
it, and measure it, and fill it with his purpose, is doing 
a man's work : none can do more : but there are 
thousands who do less. 

Short as it is, the Present is gi*eat and stroni^ ; — r,:^ 



224 Reveries of a Bacheloe. 

much stronger than the Past, as fire than ashes, or c'^3 
Death than the grave. The noon sun will quicken 
vegetable hfe, that in the morning was dead. It is 
hot and scorching : I feel it now upon my head : but 
it does not scorch and heat like the bewildering 
P]-esent. There are no oak leaves to interrupt the 
rays of the burning now. Its shadows do not fall 
east or west ; — hke the noon, the shade it makei, falls 
straight from sky to earth — straight from Heaven to 
Hell! 

Memory presides over the Past; Action presides 
over the Present. The first lives in a rich temple 
hung mih glorious trophies, and hned with tombs: 
the other has no shrine but Duty, and it walks the 
earth hke a sphit ! 

1 called my dog to me, and we shared 

together the meal that I had brought away at sunrise 
from the mansion under the elms and now, Carlo is 
gnawing at the bone that I have thrown to him, and I 
stroll dreamily in the quiet noon atmosphere, upon that 
gi'assy knoll, under the oaks. 

Noon in the country is very still : the birds do not 
sing : the workmen are not in the field : the sheep lay 
their noses to the ground ; and the herds stand in 
pools, under shady trees, lashing their sides, — but 
otherwise motionless. The mills upon the brook, far 
above, have ceased for an hour their labor ; and the 



Noon. 225 

stream softens its rustle, and sinks away from the sedgy 
banks. The heat plays upon the meadow in noiseless 
waves, and the beech leaves do not stir. 

Thought, I said, was the only measure of the Pre- 
sent : and the stillness of noon breeds thought : and 
my thought brings up the old companions, and stations 
them in the domain of now. Thought ranges over the 
world, and brings up hopes, and fears, and resolves, to 
measure the burning now. Joy, and grief, and pur- 
pose, blending in my thought, give breadth to the 
Present. 

— Where — thought I — is little Isabel now ? Where 
is Lilly — where is Ben ? Where is Leslie, — where is 
my old teacher ? Where is my chum, who played 
such rare tricks — where is the black-eyed Jane ? — 
Where is that sweet-faced girl whom I parted with 
upon that terrace, looking down upon the old spire of 
Modbury church ? Where are iny hopes — where my 
purposes — where my sorrows ? 

I care not who you are — ^but if you bring such 
thought to measure the Present, the present will seem 
broad; and it will be sultry as noon — and make a 
fever of Now. 



220 Reveries of a Bachelor, 



Early Friends. 

Where are they ? 

I cannot sit now, as once, upon the edge of the brook, 
hour after hour, flinging off my hne and hook to the 
nibbhng roach, and reckon it great sport. There is no 
girl with auburn ringlets to sit beside me, and to play 
upon the bank. The hours are shorter than they were 
then ; and the little joys that furnished boyhood till the 
heart was full, can fill it no longer. Poor Tray is dead, 
long ago ; and he cannot swira into the pools for the 
floating sticks ; nor can I sport with him hour after 
hour, and think it happiness. The mound that covers 
his grave is sunken ; and the trees that shaded it, are 
broken and mossy. 

Little Lilly is grown into a woman, and is married ; 
and she has another little Lilly, T^ith flaxen hair, she 
says, — looking as she used to look. I dare say the 
child is pretty ; but it is not my Lilly. She has a little 
boy too, that she calls Paul ; — a chubby rogue — she 
writes, — and as mischievous as ever I was. God bless 
the boy ! 

Ben, — who would have liked to ride in the coach 
that carried me away to school — has had a great 
many rides since then — rough rides, and hard ones, 



Noon. 227 

over the road of life. He does no rake up the falUng 
leaves for bonfires, as he did once ; he is grown a man, 
and is fighting his way somewhere in our western 
world, to the short-lived honors of time. He was mar- 
ried not long ago ; his wife I remembered as one of my 
playmates at my first school : she was beautiful, but 
fragile as a leaf. She died within a year of their mar- 
riage. Ben was but fom* years my senior ; but this 
gnef has made him ten yeare older. He does not say 
it ; but his eye and his figure tell it. 

The nui-se who put the pm-se in my hand that dis- 
mal morning, is grown a feeble old woman. She was 
over fifty then ; she may well be seventy now. She 
did not know my voice when I went to see her the 
other day, nor did she know my face at all. She 
repeated the name when I told it to her — Paul, Paul, — 
she did not remember any Paul, except a little boy, a 
long while ago. 

"To whom you gave a purse when he went 

away, and told him to say nothing to Lilly or to 
Ben?" 

" Yes, that Paul" — says the old woman exult- 

ingly — " do you know him ?" 

And when I told her — " she would not have beieved 
it I" But she did ; and took hold of my hand again 
(for she was blind) ; and then smoothed down the plaits 
of her apron, and jogged her cap strings, to look tidy 



228 Revj:ries of \ 15aciielor. 

in the presence of ' the gentleman.' And she told me 
long stories about the old house and how other people 
came in afterward ; and she called me ' sir' sometimes, 
and sometimes ' Paul.' But I asked her to say only- 
Paul ; she seemed glad for this, and talked easier ; and 
went on to tell of my old playmates, and how we used 
to ride the pony — poor Jacko ! — and how we gathered 
nuts — such heaping piles ; and how we used to play at 
fox and geese through the long winter evenings ; and 

how my poor mother would smile but here I 

asked her to stop. She could not have gone on much 
longer, for I beheve she loved our house and people, 
better than she loved her own. 

As for my uncle, the cold, silent man, who lived 
with his books in the house upon the hill, and who used 
to frighten me sometimes with his look, he grew very 
feeble after I had left, and almost crazed. The country 
people said that he was mad ; and Isabel with her 
sweet heart clung to him, and would lead him out 
when his step tottered, to the seat in the garden, and 
read to him out of the books he loved to hear. And 
sometimes, they told me, she would read to him some 
lettei's that I had written to Lilly or to Ben, and ask 
him if he remembered Paul, who saved her from drown- 
ing under the tree in the meadow ? But he could only 
shake his head, and mutter something about how old 
and feeble he had grown. 



Noon. 229. 

They wrote me afterward that he died ; and was 
bui'ied in a far-away place, where his wife once hved, 
and wliere he now sleeps beside her. Isabel was sick 
with grief, and came to live for a time with Lilly 
but when they ■UTote me last, she had gone back t* 
her old home — where Tray was buried — where we had 
played together so often, through the long days of 
summer. 

I was glad I should find her there, when I came 
back. Lilly and Ben were both hving nearer to the 
city, when I landed from my long journey over the 
seas ; but still I went to find Isabel first. Perhaps I 
had heard so much oftener from the others, that I felt 
less eager to see them ; or perhaps I wanted to save 
my best visits to the last ; or perhaps (I did think it) 
perhaps I loved Isabel, better than them all. 

So I went into the country, thinking all the way, 
how she must have changed since I left. She must 
be now nineteen or twenty ; and then her grief must 
have saddened her face somewhat; but I thought I 
should like her all the better for that. Then perliaps 
she would not lauo-h, and tease me, but would be 
quieter, and wear a sweet smile — so calm, and beau- 
tiful, I thought. Iler figure too must have grown 
raoi-e elegant, and she would have more dignity in her 
air. 

I shuddered a little at this ; for I thought, — she 



230 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

will hardly think so much of ire then; perhaps she 
will have seen those whom she hkes a great deal bet- 
ter. Perhaps she will not like me at all ; yet I knew 
very well that I should like her. 

I had gone up almost to the house ; I had passed 
the stream wliere we fished on that day, many 
years before ; and I thought that now since she was 
grown to womanhood, I should never sit with her there 
again, and surely never drag her as I did out of the 
water, and never chafe her little hands, and never per- 
haps kiss her, as I did, when she nat upon my mother's 
lap — oh, no — no — no ! 

I saw where we buried Tray, but the old slab was 
gone ; there was no ribbon there now. I thought that 
at least, Isabel would have replaced the slab ; — but it 
was a wrong thought. I trembled when I went up to 
the door — for it flashed upon me, that perhaps, — 
Isabel was married. I cou d not tell why she should 
not ; but I knew it would make me uncomfortable, to 
hear that she had. 

There was a tall womar who opened the door ; she 
did not know me ; but I recognized her as one of the 
old servants. I asked after the housekeeper first, 
thinking I would surprise Isabel. My heart fluttered 
somewhat, thinking that she might step in suddenly 
herself — or perhaps that she might have seen me 



Noon. 231 

coming up the lii.l But even then, I thought, she 
wouki hardly know me. 

Presentl}^ the housekeeper came in. looking very 
grave ; she asked if the gentleman wished to see her ? 

The gentleman did wish it, and she sat down on 
one side of the fire ; — ^for it was autumn, and the 
leaves were falhng, and the November winds were 
very chilly. 

— Shall I tell her — thought I — who I am, or ask 
at once for Isabel ? I tried to ask ; but it was hard 
for me to call her name ; it was very strange, but I 
could not pronounce it at all. 

"Who, sir ?" — said the housekeeper, in a tone so 
earnest, that I rose at once, and crossed over, and 
took her hand : — " You know me," said T, — "you 
surely remember Paul ?" 

She started with surprise, but recovered hei-solf 
and resumed the same grave manner. I thought I 
had committed some mistake, or been in some way 
cause of offence. I called her — Madame, and asked 
for — Isabel ? 

She turned pale, terribly pale — "Bella ?" said she. 

"Yes, Bella." 

"Sir— Bella is dead!" 

I dropped into my chair. I said nothing. The 
housekeeper — bless her kind heart! — slipped noise- 
out. My hands wei-e over my eyes. The 



232 Reveries of a Baciielou. 

winds were sigliing outside, and the clock ticking 
mournfully within. 

I did not sob, nor weep, nor utter any cry. 

The clock ticked mournfully, and the winds were 
sighing ; but I did not hear them any longer ; there 
was a tempest raging within me, that would have 
drowned the voice of thunder. 

It broke at length in a long, deep sigh, — " oh God !" 
—said I. It may have been a prayer ; — it was not 
an imprecation. 

Bella — sweet Bella was dead ! It seemed as if 
with her, half the world were dead — every bright face 
darkened — every sunshine blotted out, — every flower 
withered, — every hope extinguished ! 

I walked out into the air, and stood under the trees 
where we had played together with poor Tray — -where 
Tray lay buried. But it w^as not Tray I thought of, 
as I stood there, mth the cold wind playing through 
my hair, and my eyes filHng with tears. IIow could 
she die ? Why was she gone ? Was it really true ? 
AVas Isabel indeed dead — in her coffin — buried 3 
Then why should anybody live ? What was there to 
live for, now that Bella was gone ? 

Ah, what a gap in the world, is made by the death 
of those we love ! It is no longer whole, but a poor 
half-world, that swings uneasy on its axis, and makes 
vou dizzy with the clatter of its wreck ! 



Noon. 233 

The housekeeper told me all — little by little, as I 
found calmness to listen. She had been dead a month ; 
Lilly was with her through it all ; she died sweetly, 
wthout pain, and without fear, — what can angels fear ? 
She had spoken often of ' Cousin Paul ;' she had left a 
httle pacquet for him, but it was not there ; she had 
given it into Lilly's keeping. 

Her gi-ave, the housekeeper told me, was only a little 
way off from her home — beside the grave of a brother 
who died long years before. I -went there that evening. 
The mound was high and fresh. The sods had not 
closed together, and the dry leaves caught in the 
crevices, and gave a ragged and a terrible look to the 
grave. The next day, I laid them all smooth — as we 
had once laid them on the grave of Tray ; — ^I clipped the 
long grass, and set a tuft of blue violets at the foot, and 
watered it all with — tears. The homestead, the trees, 
the fields, the meadows — in the windy November, 
looked dismally. I could not like them again ; — I 
hked nothing, but the little mound, that I had dressed 
over Bella's grave. There she sleeps now, — the sleep 
of Death ! 



School Revisited. 

The old school is there still, — ^with the high cupola 
upon it, and the long galleries, with the sleeping rooms 



234 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

opening out on either side, and the corner one, where I 
slept. But the boys are not there, nor the old teachei-s. 
They have ploughed up the play-ground to plant corn, 
and the apple tree with the low limb, that made our 
gymnasium, is cut down. 

1 was there only a httle time ago. It was on a Sun- 
day. One of the old houses of the village had been 
fashioned into a tavern, and it was there I stopped. 
But I strolled by the old one, and looked into the bar- 
room, where I used to gaze with wonder upon the enor- 
mous pictures of wild animals, which heralded some 
coming menagerie. There was just such a picture 
hanging still, and two or three advertisements of sheriffs, 
and a little bill of a ' horse stolen,' and — as I thought — 
the same brown pitcher on the edge of the Bar. I was 
sure it was the same great wood box that stood by the 
fire place, and the same whip, and great coat hung in 
the corner. 

I was not in so gay costume, as I once thought I 
would be wearing, when a man ; I had nothing better 
than a rusty shooting jacket ; but even with this, I 
was determined to have a look about the church, and 
see if I could trace any of the faces of the old times. 
They had sadly altered the building ; they had cut 
out its long galleries, and its old fashioned square 
pews, and filled it with narrow boxes, as they do in 
the city. The pulpit was not so high, or grand ; and 



JN O u N . 23|r 

it was covered over "svith the work of the cabinet- 
makers. 

I missed too the old preacher, whom ]ve all feared so 
much ; and in place of him, was a jaunty looking man, 
whom I thought I would not be at all afraid to speak 
to, or if need be, to slap on the shoulder. And when 
I did meet him after church, I looked him in the eye 
as boldly as a lion — what a change was that, from the 
school days ! 

Here and there, I could detect about the church, 
some old farmer, by the stoop in his shoulders, or by a 
particular twist in his nose ; and one or two young 
fellows, who used to storm into the gallery in my 
school days, in very gay jackets, dressed off with 
ribbons, — which we thought was astonishing heroism, 
and admired accordingly, — were now settled away into 
fathers of families ; and looked as demure, and peacea- 
ble, at the head of their pews, ^vith a white-headed 
boy or two between them, and their wives, as if the} 
had been married all their days. 

There was a stout man too, with a slight limp in his 
gait, who used to work on harnesses, and strap our 
skates, and who I always thought would ha^-'^ made 
a capital Vulcan, — ^he stalked up the aisle pas! me, 
as if I had my skates strapped at his shop, only 
yesterday. 

The l)ald-pated shoemaker, who never kect hk 



236 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

word, and who worked in the brick shop, and who had 
a son called Theodore, — which we all thought a very- 
pretty name for a shoemaker's son — I could not find 
I feared he might be dead. I hoped, if he wa&. 
that his broken promises about patching boots, woulc 
not come up against him. 

The old factor of tamarinds and sugar crackers, 
who used to drive his covered wagon every Saturday- 
evening into the play-ground, I observed, still holding 
his place in the village choir ; and singing — though 
with a tooth or two gone, — as serenely, and obstre- 
porously as ever. 

I looked around the church, to find the black-eyed 
girl who always sat behind the choir, — the one T 
loved to look at so much. I knew she must be 
grown up ; but I could fix upon no face positively ; 
once, as a stout woman with a pair of boys, and who 
wore a big red shawl, turned half around, I thought I 
recognized her nose. If it was she, it had grown red 
though ; and I felt cured of my old fondness. As for 
the other, who wore the hat trimmed with fur — she 
was nowhere to be seen, among either maids, or 
matrons ; and when I asked the tavern-keeper, and 
described her, and her father, as they were in my 
school-days, he told me that she had mai-ried too, and 
hved some five miles from the village ; and said he, — 
" I guess she leads her husband a devil of a Ufe !" 



Noon. 237 

I felt cured of her too ; but I pitied the husband. 

One of my old teachei"s was in the church ; I could 
have sworn to his face ; he was a precise man ; and 
now I thought he looked rather roughly at my old 
shooting jacket. But I let him look, and scowled at 
him a httle ; for I remembered that he had feruled me 
once. I thought it was not probable that he would 
ever do it again. 

There was a bustling httle lawyer in the village, who 
lived in a large house, and who was the great man 
of that town and country, — he had scarce changed at 
all; and he stepped into the church as briskly, and 
promptly, as he did ten years ago. But what struck 
me most, was the change in a couple of pretty, little, 
white-haired girls, that at the time I left, were of 
that uncertain age, when the mother lifts them on 
a Sunday, and pounces them down one after the other 
upon the seat of the pew ; — these were now grown 
into blooming young ladies. And they swept by me 
in the vestibule of the church, with a flutter of robes, 
and a grace of motion, that fairly made my heart 
twitter in my bosom. I know nothing that bring-s 
home upon a man so quick, the consciousness of in- 
creasing yeai-s, as to find the httle prattling girls, that 
;vere almost babies in his boyhood — become dashing 
ladies ; — and to find those whom he used to look on 
pati'onizingly, and compassionately — thinking they were 



238 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

little girls — grown to such maturity, that the mere 
rustle of their silk dress will give him a twinge ; and 
their eyes, if he looks at them — make him unaccountar 
bly shy. 

After service I strolled up by the school buildings ; 
I traced the names that we had cut upon the fence ; 
but the fence had grown brown with age, and was 
nearly rotted away. Upon the beech tree in the 
hollow behind the school, the carvings were all 
overgrown. It must have been vacation, if indeed 
there was any school at all; for I could see only 
one old w^oman about the premises, and she was 
hanging out a dishcloth, to dry in the sun. I passed 
on up the hill, beyond the buildings, where in the boy- 
days, we built stone foils with bastions and turrets ; 
but the fai-mers had put bastions, and turrets, 
into their cobble-stone walls. At the orchard fence, 
I stopped, and looked — from force, I believe, of old 
habit, — to see if any one were watching ; — and then 
leaped over, and found my way to the early apple 
tree ; but the fruit had gone by. It seemed very dar- 
ing in me, even then, to walk so boldly in the forbid- 
den ground. 

But the old head-master who forbade it, was dead ; 
and Russell and Burgess, and I know not how many 
others, who in other times, were culprits with me, 
were dead too. When I passed back by the school. 



Ni)ON. 239 

I lingered to look up at the windows of that corner 
room, where I had slept tie sound, healthful sleep of 
boyhood, — and where too I had passed many — many 
wakeful houi*s, thmking of the absent Bella, and of my 
home. 

^How small, seem now, the great griefs of boy- 
hood I Light floating clouds will obscure the sun that 
is but half risen ; but let him be up — mid-heaven, and 
the cloud that then darkens the land, must be thick, 
and heavy indeed. 

^The tears started from my eyes : — was not such 

a cloud over me now ? 



College. 

School-mates slip out of sight and knowledge, 
and are forgotten ; or if you meet them, they bear 
another character ; the boy is not there. It is a new 
acquaintance ihat you make, with nothing of your 
fellow upon the benches, but the name. Though tho 
eye and face cleave to your memory, and you meet 
them afterward, and think you have met a friend — the 
voice or the action will break d^wn the charm, and 
you find only — another man. 

But with your classmates, in that later school, 
where form and character were both nearer ripeness. 



240 Reveries op a Bachelor. 

and where knowledge labored for together, bred the 
first manly sympathies, — ^it is different. And as y.ou 
meet them, or hear of them, the thought of their 
advance makes a measm-e of youi own — ^it makes a 
measure of the now. 

You judge of your happiness, by theu*s, — of your 
progress, by theii's, and of your prospects, by theirs. 
If one is happy, you seek to trace out the way by 
which he has wrought his happiness; you consider 
how it differs from your own ; and you think with 
sighs, how you might possibly have wrought the 
same; but now it has escaped. K another has won 
some honorable distinction, you fall to thinking, how 
the man — ^your old equal, as you thought, upon the 
college benches — has outrun you. It pricks to effort, 
and teaches the difference between now, and then. 
Life with all its duties and hopes, gathecs upon your 
Present, hke a great weight, or like a storm ready to 
burst. It is met anew ; it pleads more strongly ; and 
action that has been neglected, rises before you — a 
giant of remorse. 

Stop not, loiter not, look not backward, if you 
would be among the foremost ! The great Now, so 
quick, so broad, so fleeting, is yours ; — in an hour it 
will belong to the Eternity of the Past. The temper 
of Life is to be made good by big honest blows ; stop 
striking, and you will do nothing ; strike feebly, and 



Noon. 241 

vou will do almost as little. Success rides on every 
hour : grapple it, and you may win : but without a 
grapple, it will never go with you. Work is the wea- 
pon of honor, and w^ho lacks the weapon, will never 
triumph. 

There were some seventy of us — all scattered now. 
I meet one here and there at wide distances apart ; and 
we talk together of old days, and of our present work 
and life, — and separate. Just so ships at sea, in 
murky weather, will shift their course to come w^ithiu 

hailing distance, and compare their longitude, and 

part. One I have met wandering in southern Italy, 
dreaminof as I was dreamino; — over the tomb of Vir- 
gil, by the dark grotto of Pausilippo. It seemed 
strange to talk of our old readings in Tacitus there 
upon classic ground ; but we did ; and ran on to tak 
of our hves ; and sitting dow^n upon the promontory of 
Bale, looking off upon that blue sea, as clear as the 
classics, we told each other our respective stories. And 
two nights after, upon the quay, in sight of Vesuvius, 
which shed a lurid glow upon the sky, that was re- 
flected from the white walls of the Hotel de Russie, 
and from the broad lava pavements, we parted — he to 
wander among the isles of the ^gean, and I to turn 
northward. 

Another time, as I w^as wandering among those 

m)steriou;3 figures that crowd the foyer of the French 
11 



242 Kevekies oi;' A Bachelor. 

opera upon a niglit of the Masked Ball, I saw a fa- 
miliar face : I followed it with my eye, mitil I became 
convinced. He did not know me until I named his old 
seat upon the bench of the Division Room, and the 

hard-faced Tutor G . Then we talked of the old 

rivalries, and Christmas joll ties, and of this and that 
one, whom w^e had come upon in our wayward tracks ; 
while the black-robed grisettes stared through their vel- 
vet masks ; — nor did we tire of comparing the old 
memories, with the unearthly gaiety of the scene about 
us, until day-hght broke. 

In a quiet mountain town of New England, I came 
not long since upon another : he was hale and hearty, 
and pushing liis lawyer work with just the same 
nervous energy, with which he used to recite a theo- 
rem of Euclid. He was father too of a cou})le of 
stout, curly-pated boys; and hJs good woman, as he 
called her, appeared a sensible, honest, good-natuicd 
lady. I must say that I envied him his wife, much 
more than I had envied my companion of the opera— 
his Domino. 

I happened only a little while ago to drop into the 
college chapel of a Sunday. There were the same 
hard oak benches below, and the lucky fellows who 
enjoyed a corner seat, were leaning back upon the 
rail, after the old fashion. The tutoi's were perched 
up in their side boi'"!s, looking as prim, and serious, 



N o X . 243 

and important, as ever. The same stout Doctor read 
the hymn in the same rhythmical way ; and he prayed 
the same prayer, for (I thought) the same old sort of 
sinners. As I shut my eyes to hsten, it seemed as if 
the intermediate years had all gone out ; and that I was 
on my own pew bench, and thinking out those little 
schemes for excuses, or for effort, which were to reheve 
jue, or to advance me, in my college world. 

There was a pleasure, like the pleasure of dreaming 
about forgotten joys — in Mstening to the Doctor's 
sermon : he began in the same half embarrassed, half 
awkward way ; and fumbled at his Bible leaves, and 
the poor pinched cushion, as he did long before. But 
as he went on with his rusty and polemic vigor, the 
poetry within him would now and then warm his soul 
into a burst of fervid eloquence, and his face would 
glow^, and his hand treml^le, and the cushion and the 
Bible leaves be all forgot, in the glow of his thought, 
until with a half cough, and a pinch at the cushion, he 
fell back into his strono; but tread-mill ai-o-umenta- 
tion. 

In the corner above, was the stately, white-haired 
professor, wearing the old dignity of carriage, and a 
smile as bland, as if the yeai-s had all been playthings ; 
and had I seen him in his lecture-room, I daresay I 
shoidd have found the same suavitv of .-.hbcss, tlie .same 



244 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

marvellous currency of talk, and the same infinite com- 
posure over the exploding retorts. 

Near him was the silver-haired old gentleman, — 
with a very astute expression, — who used to have an 
odd habit of tightening his cloak about his netlier 
limbs. I could not see that his eye was any the less 
bright; nor did he seem less eager to catch at the 
handle of some witticism, or bit of satire, — to the poor 
student's cost. I remembered my old awe of him, I 
must say, with something of a grudge; but I had got 
fairly over it now. There are sharper griefs in life, than 
a professor's talk. 

Farther on, I saw the long-faced, dark-haired man, 
who looked as if he were always near some explosive, 
electric battery, or upon an insulated stool. He was, I 
believe, a man of fine feehngs ; but he had a way of 
reducing all action to dry, hard, mathematical system, 
with very little poetry about it. I know there was not 
much poetry in his problems in physics, and still less in 
his half-yearly examinations. But I do not dread them 
now. 

Over opposite, I was glad to see still, the aged 
head of the kind, and generous old man, who in ray 
day presided over the college ; and who carried with 
him the aflections of each succeeding class, — added to 
their respect for his learning. This seems a higher 
triumj^h to me now, than it seemed then. A strong 



Noon. 245 

mind, or a cultivated mind may challenge respect ; l>ut 
there is needed a noble one, to win affection. 

A new man now filled his place in the president's 
seat ; but he was one whom I had known, and been 
proud to know. His figure was bent, and thin — the 
very figure that an old Flemish master would have 
chosen, for a scholar. His eye had a kind of piercing 
JListre, as if it had long been fixed on books ; and his 
expression — when unreheved by his affable smile — was 
tliat of hard midnight toil. With all his polish of 
mind, he was a gentleman at heart ; and treated us 
always with a manly courtesy, that is not forgotten. 

But of all the faces that used to be ranged below — 
four hundred men and boys — there was not one, with 
whom to join hands, and live back again. Their 
griefs, joys, and toil, were chaining them to their labor 
of life. Each one in his thought, coursing over a 
world as wide as my own ; — how many thousand 
worlds of thought, upon this one world of ours ! 

I stepped dreamily through the corridors of the old 
Atheneum, thinking of that first, fearful step, when 
the faces were new, and the stern tutor was strange, 
and the prolix Livy so hard. I went up at night, and 
skulked around the buildings, when the fights were 
blazing from all the windows, and they were busy 
with their tasks, — plain tasks, and easy tasks, — because 
they are certain tasks. Happy feUows — thought I — 



246 11 EYERIES OF A BaCIIELOR. 

wlio laave only to do, wliat is set before 3^011 to be clone. 
But the time is coining, and very fast, when you must 
not only do, but know what to do. The time is 
coming, when in place of your one master, you will 
have a thousand masters — masters of duty, of business, 
of fjlcasure, and of grief — giving you harder lessons 
each one of them, than any of your Fluxions. 

Morning will pass, and the Noon will come — ^hot, 
and scorch in Of. 



The Pacquet of Bella. 

I have not forgotten that pacquet of Bella ; I did 
not once forget it. And when I saw Lilly — now the 
grown np Lilly, happy in her household, and blithe as 
when she was a maiden, she gave it to me. She 
told me too of Bella's illness, and of her suffering, and 
of her manner, when she put the httle pacquet in her 
hand ' for Cousin Paul.' But this I will not repeat ; — 
I cannot. 

I know not why it was, but I shuddered at the 
mention of her name. There are some who will talk, 
at table, and in their gossip, of dead friends ; I wonder 
how they do it ? For myself, when the grave has 
closed its gates on the feces of those I love — however 
busy my mournful thought may be, the tongue is 



Noon. 24*7 

Bilent. I cannot name their names ; it shocks me to 
hear them named. It seems hke tearmg open half- 
healed Avomids, and disturhing with hai-sh worldly 
noise, the sweet sleep of death. 

I loved Bella. I know not how I loved her, — 
whether as a lover, or as a hushand loves a wife ; I 
onl}^ know this, — I always loved her. She was so 
gentle — so beautiful, — so confiding, that I never once 
thought, but that the whole world loved her, as well as 

I. There was only one thing I never told to Bella ; 

I would tell her of all my grief, and of all my joys ; 
I would tell her my hopes, my ambitious dreams, my 
disappointments, my anger, and my dishkes ; — but I 
never told her how much I loved her. 

I do not know why, unless I knew that it was need- 
less. But I should as soon have thought of telling 
Bella on some winter's day — Bella, it is winter ! — or of 
w^hispering to her on some balmy day of August — 
Bella, it is summer ! — as of telling her, after she had 
grown to girlhood, — Bella, I love you ! 

I had received one letter fi-om her in the old coun- 
tries ; it was a sweet letter, in which she told me all 
that she had been doing, and how she had thought of 
me, when she rambled over the woods where we had 
rambled together. She had written two or three 
other lettei-s, Lilly told me, but they had never 
reached me. I had told her too of all that made mv 



248 11 E Y E R T E R OF X T) A C II E L R . 

happiness ; I wrote licr about the sweet girl I liad 
seen on shipboard, and how I met her afterward, and 
what a happy time we passed do\\Ti in Devon. I evei. 
told her of the strange dream I had, in which Isabel 
seemed to be in England, and to tm-n away from me 
sadly, because I called — Carry. 

I also told her of all I saw in that great world of 
Paris — writing, as I would write to a sister; and I 
told her too of the sweet Roman girl, Enrica — of her 
brown hair, and of her rich eyes, and of her pretty 
Carnival dresses. And when I missed letter after 
letter, I told her that she must still wi-ite her 
lettei-s, or some little journal, and read it to me when 
I came back. I thought how pleasant it would be to 
sit under the trees by her father's house, and listen 
to her tender voice going through that record of her 
thoughts, and fears. Alas, how our hopes betray 
usl 

It began almost like a diary, about the time that 
her father fell sick. " It is" — said she to Lilly, when 
she gave it to her, "what I would have said to Cousin 
Paul, if he had been here." 

It bemns " 1 have come back now to father's 

house ; I could not leave him alone, for they told me 
he was sick. I found him not well ; he was very glad 
to see me; and kissed jiq so tenderly that I am sure, 



Noon. 249 

Cousin Paul, you wculd not have said, ns you usod to 
suy — that he was a cold man ! I sometimes read to 
him, sitting in the deep library window, (you remem- 
ber it,) where we used to nestle out of his sight, at 
dusk. He cannot read any more. 

'' I would give anything to see the little Carry you 
speak of; but do you know you did not describe her 
to me at all ; will you not tell me if she has dark 
hair, or hght, or if her eyes are blue, or dark, like 
mine ? Is she good ; did she not make ugly speeches, 
or grow peensh, in those long days upon the ocean ? 
How I would have liked to have been with you, on 
those clear starlit nights, looking off upon the water I 
But then I think that you would not have wished mo 
there ; and that you did not once think of me even. 
This makes me sad ; yet I know not why it should ; 
for I always liked you best, when you were happy ; 
and I am sure you must have been happy then. You 
say you shall never see her after you have left the 
ship : — you must not think so. Cousin Paul ; if she is 
so beautiful, and fond, as you tell me, your own heart 
will lead you in her way, some time again ; I feel 
almost sure of it. 

* * * "Father is getting more and more 

feeble, and wandering in his mind ; this is very dreadful ; 

he calls me sometimes by my mother's name ; and 
11* 



250 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

when I say — it is Isabel, — he says— what Isabel ! 
and treats me as if I was a stranger. The physician 
shakes his head when I ask him of father : oh, Paul 
if he should die — what could I do ? I should die too — 
I know I should. Who would there be to care for me ? 
Lilly is married, and Ben is far off, and you Paul, whom 
I love better that either, are a long way from me. But 
God is good, and he will spare my father. 

* * '-^ " So you have seen again your little 
Carry : I told you it would be so. You tell me 
how accidental it was : — ah, Paul, Paul, you rogue, 
honest as you are, I half doubt you there ! I like 
your description of her too , — dark eyes like mine you 
say — ' almost as pretty ;' well, Paul, I wiU forgive you 
that ; it is only a white lie. You know they must be 
a great deal prettier than mine, or you would never 
have stayed a whole fortnight in an old farmer's 
house, far down in Devon ! I wish I could see her : 
I wish she was here with you now ; for it is mid- 
summer, and the trees and flowers were never prettier. 
But I am all alone ; father is too ill to go out at all. 
I fear now very much, that he will never go out 
again. Lilly was here yesterday, but he did not 
know her. She read me your last letter : it was not 
so long as mine. You are very — very good to me, 
Paul. 



No ox. 251 

* * % ti YoY a long timo T liave wi-ittoii 
nothing : my father has been very ill, and the old 
housekeeper has been sick too, and father would have 
no one but me near him. He cannot live long. I feel 
sadly — misoi-ably ; you will not know me whon you 
come home ; your ' pretty Bella' — as you used to call 
me, will have lost all her beauty. But perhaps you 
will not care for that, for you tell me you have found 
one prettier than ever. I do not know. Cousin Paul, 
but it is because I am so sad, and selfish — for sorrow is 
selfish — but I do not Hke your raptures about the 
Roman girl. Be careful, Paul : I know your heart : it 
is quick and sensitive ; and I dare say she is pretty, and 
has beautiful eyes ; for they tell me all the Italian girls 
have soft eyes. 

"But Italy is far away, Paul; I can never see 
Emica; she will never come here. No — no, remem- 
ber Devon : I feel as if Carry was a sister now : I 
cannot feel so of the Roman girl : I do not want to 
feel so. You will say this is harsh ; and I am afraid 
you will not hke me so well for it ; but I cannot help 
saying it. I love you too well, Cousin Paul, not to 
say it. 

* * * " It is all over ! Indeed, Paul, I 
am very desolate ! ' The golden bowl is broken' — 
my poor father has gone to his last home, I was 



252 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

expecting it; but how can we expect that fearful 
comer — death ? He had been for a long time so 
feeble, that he could scarce speak at all : he sat for 
hours in his chair, looking upon the fire, or looking out 
at the window. He would hardly notice me when I 
came to change his pillows, or to smooth them for his 
head. But before he died, he knew me as well as ever. 
'Isabel,' he said, 'you have been a good daughter: 
God will reward you!' and he kissed me so ten- 
derly, and looked after me so anxiously, with such 
intelligence in his look, that I thought perhaps he 
would revive again. In the evening he asked me 
for one of his books, that he loved very much. 
' Father,' said I, ' you cannot read • it is almost 
dark.' 

" ' Oh, yes,' said he ; ' Isabel, I can read now. 
And I brought it ; he kept my hand a long while ; 
then he opened the book ; — it was a book about 
death. 

" I brought a candle, for I knew he could not read 
without. 

" ' Isabel, dear,' said he, ' put the candle a little 
nearer.' But it was close beside him even then. 

" ' A httle nearer, Isabel,' — repeated he, and his 
voice was very faint ; and he grasped my hand hard. 

" ' Nearer, Isabel ! nearer !' 

*' There was no need to do it, for m.y poor father was 



Noon. 253 

dead ! Oh ! Paul, Paul ! — pity me. I do not know 
but I am crazed. It does not seem the same world it 
was. And the house, and the trees, oh, they are very 
dismal ! 

" I wish you would come home, Cousin Paul : life 
would not be so very — very blank as it is now. Lilly 
is kind ; — I thank her from my heart. But it is not 
her father who is dead ! 

* * «r « I am calmer now ; I am staying 
with Lilly. The world seems smaller than it did ; but 
Heaven seems a great deal larger : there is a place for 
us all there, Paul, — if we only seek it ! They tell mo 
you are coming home : I am glad. You will not hke 
perhaps to come away from that pretty Enrica, you 
speak of; but do so, Paul. It seems to me that I see 
clearer than I did, and I talk bolder. The girlish 
Isabel you will not find, for I am much older, and my 
ah' is more grave; and this suffering has made me 
feeble — ^very feeble. 

* * * " It is not easy for me to write ; but 
I must tell you that I have just found out who your 
Carry is. Years ago, when you were away from home, 
I was at school with her. We were always together. 
I wonder I could not have found her out from your 
description ; but I did not even suspect it. She is a 



254 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

dear girl, and is worthy of all your love. I have seen 
her once since you have met her : we talked of you. 
She spoke kindly — very kindly: more than this, I 
cannot tell you, for I do not know more. Ah, Paul, 
may you be happy : I feel as if I had but a little while 
to live. 

% * * " It is even so, my dear Cousin Paul, 
— 1 shall write but little more ; my hand trembles 
now. But I am ready. It is a glorious world beyond 
this — I know it is ! And there we shall meet. I did 
hope to see you once again, and to hear your voice, 
speaking to me as you used to speak. But I shall not. 
Life is too frail with me. I seem to live wholly now in 
the world where I am going : — there is my mother, and 
my father, and my little brother — we shall meet — I 
know w^e shall meet ! 

* «r * « rj^^Q l^g|. — Paul. Never again in 
this woi'ld ! I am happy — very happy. You will 
come to me. I can write no more. May good angels 
guard you, and bring you to Heaven !" 

Shall I go on ? 



But the toils of life are upon me. Private gi'iefs 
do not break the force, and the weight of the great — 
Present. A life — at best the half of it, is before me. 



Noon. , 255 

It is to be wroiiglu out with nerve and work. And — 
blessed be God ! — there are gleams of sunlight upon 
it. That sweet Carry, doubly dear to me now, that 

she is joined with my sorrow for the lost Isabel, 

shall be sought for ! 

And with her sweet image floating before me, the 
KooN wanes, and the shadows of Evening lengthen 
upon the land. 



III. 

Evening. 

THE Future is a great land : — how the hghts, and 
the shadows throng over it, — bright and dark, 
slow and swift ! 

Pride and Ambition build up great castles on its 
plains, — great monuments on the mountains, that reach 
heavenward, and dip their tops in the blue of Eter- 
nity! Then comes an earthquake — the earthquake 
of disappointment, of distrust, or of inaction, and 
lays them low. Gaping desolation widens its breaches 
everywhere; the eye is full of them, and can see 
nothing beside. By and by, the sun peeps forth, — 
as now from behind yonder cloud — and reanimates the 
soul. 

Fame beckons, sittmg high in the heavens ; and 



EVEXTNO. 257 

joy lends a halo to tlie vision. A tliousand resolves 
stir your heart ; your hand is hot, and feverish for ac- 
tion ; your brain works madly, and you snatch here, 
and you snatch there, in the convulsive throes of your 
deHrium. Perhaps you see some earnest, careful plod- 
der, once far behind you, now toiling slowly but surely, 
over the plain of life, until he seems near to grasping 
those brilliant phantoms which dance along the horizon 
of the future ; and the sight stirs your soul to frenz}'-, 
and you bound on after him with the madness of 
a fever in your veins. But it was by no such action, 
that the fortunate toiler has won his progress. His 
hand is steady, his brain is cool ; his eye is fixed, and 
sure. 

The Future is a gi*eat land ; a man cannot go round 
it in a day ; he cannot measure it with a bound ; he 
cannot bind its harvests into a single sheaf. It is wider 
than the vision, and has no end. 

Yet always, da}^ by day, hour by hour, second by 
second, the hard Present is elbowing us off into that 
' great land of the Future. Our souls indeed, wander 
to it, as to a home-land ; they run beyond time and 
space, beyond planets and suns, beyond far-off suns 
and comets, until hke bhnd flies, they are lost in the 
blaze of immensity, and can only grope their way 
back to our earth, and our time, by the cunning of 
instinct. 



258 Reveries of a Bachelotv. 

Cut out the Future — even tliat little Future, which 
is the Evening of our hfe, and what a fall into vacuity ! 
Forbid those earnest forays over the borders of Now, 
and on what spoils would the soul live ? 

For myself, I delight to wander there, and to weave 
every daj^, the passing life, into the coming life, — so 
tlosely, that I may be unconscious oi the joining. And 
if so be that I am able, I would make the whole piece 
bear fair proportions, and just figures, — hke those tapes- 
tries, on which nuns work by inches, and finish with 
their lives; — or like those grand frescos, which poet 
artists have wrought on the vaults of old cathedrals, 
gaunt, and colossal, — appearing mere daubs of carmine 
and azure, as they lay upon their backs, working out a 
hand's breadth at a time, — but when complete, show- 
ing — symmetrical, and glorious ! 

But not alone does the soul wander to those ghtter- 
ing heights where fame sits, with plumes wa\dng in 
zephyrs of applause ; there belong to it, other appetites, 
which range wide, and constantly over the broad Fu- 
ture-land. We are not merely, working, intellectual 
machines, but social puzzles, whose solution is the work 
of a life. Much as hope may lean toward the intoxi- 
cating joy of distinction, there is another leaning in tho 
soul, deeper, and stronger, toward those pleasures 
which the heart pants for, and in whose atmosphere, 
Uie affections bloom and ripeii. 



K V E N I X G . 25$^ 

The fii'st may iiideed be upporrnost; it may be 
noisiest ; it may drown with the damor of mid-day, 
the nicer sympathies. But all our day is not mid- 
day ; and all our life is not noise. Silence is as strong- 
as the soul ; and there is no tempest so wild with 
blasts, but has a wilder lull. There lies in the depth 
of every man's soul a mine of affection, wliich from 
time to time will burn with the seething heat of a 
volcano, and heave up lava-like monuments, through all 
the cold strata of his commoner nature. 

One may hide his warmer feelings ; — he may paint 
them dimly ; — he may crowd them out of his sailing 
chart, where he only sets down the harbors for traffic ; 
yet in his secret heart, he will map out upon the great 
country of the Future, fairy islands of love, and of 
joy. There, he will be sure to wander, when his soul 
Is lost in those quiet and hallowed hopes, which take 
hold on heaven. 

Love only, .unlocks the door upon that Futurity, 
where the isles of the blessed lie like stars. Affection 
is the stepping stone to God. The heart is our only 
measure of infinitude. The mind tires with greatness ; 
the heart — never. Thought is worried and weakened 
in its flight through the immensity of space ; but Love 
soars around the throne of the Highest, with added 
blessing and strength. 

I know not how it may be with others, but with 



260 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

me, the heart is a readier, and quicker "builder of those 
ftibrics which strew the great country of the Future, 
than the mind. Tliey may not indeed rise so high, 
as the dizzy pinnacles that an bit'.on loves to rear ; 
but, they lie like fragrant islands, in a sea, whose ripple 
is a continuous melody. 

And as I muse now, looking toward the Evening, 
which is already begun, — tossed as I am with the 
toils of the Past, and bewildered with the vexations 
of the Present, my affections are the architect, that 
build up the future refuge. And, in fancy at least, I 
will build it boldly ; — saddened it may be by the 
chance shadows of evening ; but through all, I v/ill 
hope for a sunset, when the day ends, glorious with 
crimson and o-old. 



Carry. 

I said that harsh, and hot as was the Present, 
there were joyous gleams of light playing over the 
Future. How else could it be, when that fair being 
whom I met first upon the wastes of ocean, and whose 
name even, is hallowed by the dying words of Isabel, 
is living in the same world with me ? Amid all the 
perplexities that haunt me, as I wander from the 
present to the future, the thought of her image, of 



Evening. 201 

her smile, of her hist kind adieu, throws a dash of sun- 
light upon my path. 

And yet why? Is it not very idle? Years have 
passed since I have seen her; I do not even know 
where she may be. What is she to me ? 

My heart whispers — very much ! — but 1 do not listen 
to that in my prouder moods. She is a woman, a 
beautiful woman indeed, whom I have known once — 
pleasantly known : she is living, but she will die, or she 
will many ; — I shall hear of it by and by, and sigh 
perhaps — nothing more. Life is earnest around me; 
there is no time to delve in the past, for bright things 
to shed radiance on the future. 

I v.ill forget the sweet girl, who was with me upon 
the ocean, and think she is dead. This manly soul is 
strong, if we would but think so : it can make a puppet 
of griefs, and take down, and set up at will, the symbols 
of its hope. 

— But no, 1 cannot : the more I think thus, the less, 
I really think thus. A single smile of that frail girl, 
when I recal it, — mocks all my proud purposes ; as if, 
without her, my purposes were nothing. 

Pshaw I — I say — it is idle ! — and I bury my 

thought in books, and in long hours of toil ; but as the 
hours lengthen, and my head sinks with fatigue, and tha 
shadows of evening play around me, there comes again 
that sweet vision, saying with tender mockery — is it 



262 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

idle ? And I am helpless, and am led away hopefully 
and joyfully, toward the golden gates which open on 
Future. 

But this is only in those silent hours when the man 
is alone, and away from his working thoughts. At 
raid-day, or in the rush of the world, he puts hard armor 
on, that reflects all the hght of such joyous fancies. He 
is cold and careless, and ready for suffering, and for 
fight. 

One day I am travelling : I am absorbed in some 
present cares — thinking out some plan which is to make 
easier, or more successful, the voyage of life. I glance 
upon the passing scenery, and upon new faces, with 
that careless indifference which grows upon a man 
with years, and above all, with travel. There is no wife 
to enlist your sympathies — uo children to sport with : 
my friends are few, and scattered ; and are working out 
fairly, what is before them to do. Lilly is living here, 
and Ben is living there : their letters are cheerful, 
contented letters ; and they wish me well. Griefe 
even have grown hght with wearing ; and I am just in 
that careless humor — as if I said, — jog on, old worlds 
jog on ! And the end will come along soon ; and 
we shall get — poor devils that we are — just what we 
deserve ! 

But on a sudden, my eyes rest on a figure that I 
fhink I know. Now, the indifference fiies like mist ; 



Evening. 203 

and my heart throbs : and the old visions come up. I 
watch her, as if there were nothing else to be seen. 
The form is hers ; the grace is hers ; the simple dress 
— so neat, so tasteful, — that is hers too. She half 
turns her head : — ^it is the face that I saw under the 
voivet cap, in the Park of Devon ! 

I do not rush forward : I sit as if I were in a trance. 
I watch her every action — the kind attentions to her 
mother who sits beside her, — her naive exclama- 
tions, as we pass some point of sui-passing beauty. 
It seems as if a new world were opening to me ; yet 
I cannot tell why. I keep my place, and think, 
and gaze. I tear the paper I hold in my hand into 
shreds. I play with my watch chain, and twist 
the seal, until it is near breaking. I take out my 
watch, look at it, and put it back — ^yet I cannot tell 
the hour. 

It is she — I murmur — I know it is Carry ! 

But when they rise to leave, my lethargy is broken ; 
yet it is with a trembling hesitation — a Mtering as it 
were, between the present life and the future, that I 
approach. She knows me on the instant, and greets 
me kindly; — as Bella wrote — very kindly. Yet she 
shows a slight embarrassment, a sweet embarrassment, 
that I treasure in my heart, more closely even than 
the greeting. I change my coui-sc, and travel with 
them ; — now we talk of the old scenes, atid two liours 



2G4 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

seem to have made with me the difference of half a Ufe- 
time. 

It is five years since I parted with her, never hoping 
to meet again. She was then a frail girl ; she is now 
just rounding into womanhood. Her eyes are as dark 
and deep as ever : the lashes that fringe them, seem to 
me even longer than they were. Her color is as rich, 
her forehead as fair, her smile as sweet, as they wero 
before ; — only a httle tinge of sadness floats upon her 
eye, hke the haze upon a summer landscape. I grow 
bold to look upon her, and timid with looking. Wo 
talk of Bella : — she speaks in a soft, low voice, and 
the shade of sadness on her face, gathers — as when 
a summer mist obscures the sun. I talk in mono- 
syllables : I can command no other. And there is a 
look of sympathy in her eye, when I speak thus, that 
binds my soul to her, as no smiles could do. What 
can draw the heart into the fulness of love, so quick as 
sympathy ? 

But this passes ; — we must part ; she for her home, 
and I for that broad home, that has been mine so long 
— the world. It seems broader to me than ever, and 
colder than ever, and less to be wished for than ever. 
A new book of hope is sprung wide open in my life : 
-a hope of home ! 

We are to meet at some time, not far off, in the 
city where I am living. I look forward to that time, 



Evening. 265 

as at school I used to look for vacation : it is a point 
d^a2)pui for hope, for thought, and for countless journey- 
■ings into the opening future. Never did I keep the 
dates better, never count the days more carefully, 
whether for bonds to be paid, or for dividends to fall 
due. 

I welcome the time, and it passes like a dream. I 
am near her, often as I dare ; the hours are very short 
with her, and very long away. She receives me kindly 
— always very kindly ; she could not be otherwise than 
kind. But is it anything more ? This is a greedy 
nature of ours ; and when sweet kindness flows upon 
us^ we want more. I know she is kind ; and yet ia 
place of being grateful, I am only covetous of an excess 
of kindness. 

She does not mistake my feehngs, surely : — ah, no, — 
trust a woman for that ! But what have I, or what 
am I, to ask a return ? She is pure, and gentle as an 
angel ; and I — alas — only a poor soldier in our world- 
fight against the Devil! Sometimes in moods of 
vanity, I call up what I fondly reckon my excellencies 
or deserts — a sorry, pitiful array, that makes me shame- 
feced when I meet her. And in an instant, I banish 
them all. And I think, that if I were called upon 
in some high court of justice, to say why I should 
claim her indulgence, or her love — I would say nothing 

of my Bturdv effort to beat down the roughnesses 
12 



266 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

of toil — ^nothing of such inanliness as wears a calm 
front amid the frowns of the world, — nothing of 
little triumphs, in the every-day fight of hfe ; but 
only, I would enter the simple plea — this heart is 
hers ! 

She leaves ; and I have said nothing of what was 
seething within me ; — ^how I curse my folly ! She is 
gone, and never perhaps will return. I recal in despair 
her last kind glance. The world seems blank to me. 
She does not know ; perhaps she does not care, if I love 
her. — Well, I will bear it, — I say. But I cannot bear 
it. Business is broken; books are blurred; some- 
thing remains undone, that fate declares must be 
done. Not a place can I find, but her sweet smile gives 
to it, either a tinge of gladness, or a black shade of deso- 
lation. 

I sit down at my table with pleasant books ; the fire 
is burning cheerfully; my dog looks up earnestly when 
I speak to him ; but it will never do ! Her image 
sweeps away all these comforts in a flood. I fling down 
my book ; I turn my back upon my dog ; the fire hisses 
and sparkles in mockery of me. 

Suddenly a thought flashes on my brain ; — I will 
write to her — I say. And a smile floats over my 
face, — a smile of hope, ending in doubt. I catch up 
my pen — my trusty pen ; and the clean sheet lies be- 
fore me. The paper could not be better, nor tho 



Evening. 267 

pen. I have written hundreds of lettei-s ; it is easy to 
wi'ite letters. But now, it is not easy. 

I begin, and cross it out. I begin again, and get 
on a Httle farther ; — then cross it out. I try again, 
but can write nothing. I fling down my pen in de- 
spair, and burn the sheet, and go to my hbrary for 
some old sour ti'eatise of Shaftesbury, or Lyttleton; 
and say — talking to myself all the while ; let her go ! 
— She is beautiful, but I am strong; the world is 
short ; we — I and my dog, and my books, and my 
pen, will battle it through bravely, and leave enough 
for a tomb-stone. 

But even as I say it, the tears start ; — ^it is all false 
saying ! And I throw Shaftesbury across the room, 
and take up my pen again. It glides on and on, as 
my hope glows, and I tell her of our fii-st meeting, 
and of our hours m the ocean twilight, and of our un- 
steady stepping on the heaving deck, and of that 
parting in the noise of London, and of my joy at 
seeing her in the pleasant country, and of my grief af- 
terward. And then I mention Bella, — her friend and 
mine — and the tears flow ; and then I speak of our 
last meeting, and of my doubts, and of this very eve- 
ning, — and how I could not write, and abandoned it, — 
and then felt something within me that made me write, 
and tell her all I " That my heart was not my 



268 JtiEVERlES OF A BACHELOR. 

own, but was wholly hers ; and that if she would be 
mine, 1 would cherish her, and love her always !" 

Then, I feel a kind of happiness, — a strange, tu- 
multuous happiness, into which doubt is creeping from 
time to time, bringing with it a cold shudder. I seal 
the letter, and carry it — a great weight — for the mail. 
It seems as if there could be no other letter that day ; 
and as if all the coaches and horses, and cars, and boats 
were specially detailed to bear that single sheet. It is 
a great letter for me ; my destiny hes in it. 

I do not sleep well that night ; — it is a tossing sleep ; 
one time joy — sweet and holy joy comes to my dreams, 
and an angel is by me ; — another time, the angel 
fades — the brightness fades, and I wake, struggling 
with fear. For many nights it is so, until the day comes, 
on which I am looking for a reply. 

The postman has little suspicion that the letter 
which he gives me — although it contains no promissory 
notes, nor moneys, nor deeds, nor articles of trade- 
is yet to have a greater influence upon my life and 
upon my future, than all the letters he has ever 
brought to me before. But I do not show him this ; 
nor do I let him see the clutch with which I grasp it. 
I bear it, as if it were a great and fearfal burden, to my 
room. I lock the door, and having broken the seal 
with a quivering hand, — read ; — 



EvENiNir. 269 



The Letter. 

"Paul — for I tliink I may call you so now — ^I 
know not how to answer you. Your letter gave mo 
great joy ; but it gave me pain too. I cannot — will 
not doubt what you say : I believe that you love me 
better than I deserve to be loved ; and I know that I 
am not worthy of all your kind praises. But it is not 
this that pains me ; for I know that yon have a gen- 
erous heart, and would forgive, as you always have for- 
given, any weakness of mine. I am proud too, very 
proud, to have won your love ; but it pains me — more 
perhaps than you will beheve — to think that I cannot 
write back to you, as I would wish to write ; — alas, 
never !" 

Here I dash the letter upon the floor, and with my 
hand upon my forehead, sit gazing upon the glowing 
coals, and breathing quick and loud. — The dream 
then is broken ! 

Presently I read again : 

" You know that my father died, before we 



had ever met. He had an old friend, who had come 
from England ; and who in early life had done him 



270 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

some gYQiit service, v/liich made him seem like a 
brother. This old gentleman was my god-father, and 
called me daughter. When my father died, he drew 
me to his side, and said, — 'Carry, I shall leave you, 
but my old hiend will be your father ;' and he put my 
hand in his, and said — ' I give you my daughter.' 

" This old gentleman had a son, older than myself ; 
but we were much together, and grew up as brother 
and sister. I was proud of him ; for he was tall and 
strong, and every one called him handsome. He was 
as kind too, as a brother could be ; and his father was 
hke my own father. Every one said, and believed, 
that we would one day be married ; and my mother, 
and my new father spoke of it openly. So did Lau- 
rence, for that is my friend's name. 

" I do not need to tell you any more, Paul ; for 
when I was still a girl, we had promised, that we 
would one day bi man and wife. Laurence has been 
much in England ; and I beheve he is there now. 
The old gentleman treats me still as a daughter, and 
talks of the time, when I shall come and live with 
him. The letters of Laurence are very kind ; and 
though he does not talk so much of our marriage as 
he did, it is only, I think, because he regards it as so 
certain. 

" I have wished to tell you all this before ; but I 



Evening. 271 

have feared to tell you ; I am afraid I have been too 
selfish to tell you. And now what can I say ? Lau- 
rence seems most to me like a brother; — and you, 

Paul but I must not go on. For if I marry 

Laurence, as fate seems to have decided, I will try and 
love him, better than all the world. 

" But will you not be a brother, and love me, as you 
once loved Bella ; — you say my eyes are like hers, and 
that my forehead is like hers ; — will you not believe 
that my heart is Hke hers too ? 

"Paul, if you shed tears over this letter — I have 
shed them as well as you. I can wi'ite no more now. 

"Adieu." 

I sit long looking upon the blaze ; and when I rouse 
myself, it is to say wicked things against destiny. 
Again, all the future seems very blank. I cannot love 
Carry, as I loved Bella ; she cannot be a sister to me ; 
she must be more, or nothing ! Again, I seem to 
float singly on the tide of life, and see all around 
me in cheerful groups. Everywhere the sun shines, 
except upon my own cold forehead. There seems 
no mercy in Heaven, and no goodness for me upon 
Earth. 

I write after some days, an answer to the letter. 
But it is a bitter answer, in which I forget myself, in 



272 Reveries of a Baciielok. 

the whirl of ray misfortunes — to the utterance of 
reproaches. * 

Her reply, which comes speedily, is sweet, and 
gentle. She is hurt by my reproaches, deeply hurt 
But with a touching kindness, of which I am not 
worthy, she credits all my petulance to my wounded 
feeUng ; she soothes me ; but in soothing, only wounds 
the more. I try to believe her, when she speaks of her 
unworthiness ; — but I cannot. 

Business, and the pursuits of ambition or of interest, 
pass on like dull, grating machinery. Tasks are 
met, and performed with strength indeed, but with 
no cheer. Courage is high, as I meet the shocks, and 
trials of the world ; but it is a brute, careless courage, 
that glories in opposition. I laugh at any dangers, 
or any insidious pitfalls ; — what are they to me ? 
What do I possess, which it will be hard to lose? 
My dog keeps by me ; my toils are present ; my food 

is ready ; my hmbs are strong ; what need for 

more 1 

The months slip by ; and the cloud that floated over 
my evening sun, passes. 

Laurence wandering abroad, and writing to Caro- 
line, as to a sister, — writes more than his father could 
have wished. He has met new faces, very sweet 
faces ; and one which shows through the ink of his 
later letters, very gorgeously. The old gentleman 



Evening. 273 

does not like to lose thus his httle Cany; and ho 
writes back rebuke. But Laurence, with the letters of 
Carohne before him for data, throws himself upon his 
sister's kindness, and charity. It astonishes not a little 
the old gentleman, to find his daughter pleading 
in such strange way, for the son. " And what will you 
do then, my Carry ?" — the old man says. 

" Wear weeds, if you wish, sir ; and love you 

and Laurence more than ever !" 

And he takes her to his bosom, and says — " Carry — 
Carry, you are too good for that wild fellow Lau- 
rence !" 

Now, the letters are different ! Now they are full 
of hope — dawning all over the future sky. Business, 
and care, and toil, glide, as if a spirit animated them 
all ; it is no longer cold machine work, but intelligent, 
and hopeful activity. The sky hangs upon you 
lovingly, and the birds make music, that startles you 
with its fineness. Men wear cheerful faces ; the 
storms have a kind pity, gleaming through all their 
wrath. 

The days approach, when you can call her yours. 
For she has said it, and her mother has said it ; and 
the kind old gentleman, who says he will still be her 
father, has said it too ; and they have all welcomed 
you — won by her stoiy — with a cordiality, that has 
iijade your cup full, to running over. Only one 
12* 



274 Reveries of a Bachelor 

thouglit comes up to obscure your joy ; — is it real ? or 
if real, are you worthy to enjoy ? Will you cherish 
and love always, as you have promised, that angel 
who accepts your word, and resfe her happiness on 
your faith ? Are there not harsh qualities in your 
nature, which you fear may sometime make her 
regret that she gave herself to your love and charity ? 
And those friends who watch over her, as the apple of 
their eye, can you always meet their tenderness and 
approval, for your guardianship of their treasure ? Is 
it not a treasure that makes you fearful, as well as 
joyful ? 

But you forget this in her smile : her kindness, her 
goodness, her modesty, will not let you remember it. 
She forbids such thoughts ; and you yield such obedi- 
ence, as you never yielded even to the commands of a 
mother. And if your business, and your labor slip by, 
partially neglected — what matters it ? What is interest, 
or what is reputation, compared with that fullness of 
your heart, which is now ripe with joy ? 

The day for your marriage comes ; and you live as 
if you were in a dream. You think well, and hope 
well for all the world. A flood of charity seems to 
radiate from all around you. And as you sit beside 
her in the twihght, on the evening before the day, 
when you will call her yours, and talk of the coming 
hopes, and of the soft shadows of the past ; and whis- 



Evening. 275 

per of Bella's love, and of that sweet sister's death, and 
of Laurence, a new brother, coming home joyful with 
his bride, — and lay your cheek to hers — life seems as 
if it were all day, and as if there could be no night ! 

The marriage passes ; and she is yours, — yours 
forevei*. 



New Travel, 

Again I am upon the sea; but not alone. She 
whom I fii-st met upon the wastes of ocean, is there 
beside me. Again I steady her tottering step upon the 
deck ; once it was a drifting, careless pleasure ; now 
the pleasure is holy. 

Once the fear I felt, as the storms gathered, and 
night came, and the ship tossed madly, and great waves 
gathering swift and high, came down like slipping 
mountains, and spent their force upon the quivering 
vessel, was a selfish fear. But it is so no longer. 
Indeed I hardly know fear ; for how can the tempests 
harm her ? Is she not too good to suffer any of the 
wrath of heaven ? 

And in nights of calm, — holy nights, we lean over 
the ship's side, looking dov/n, as once befoi'e, into the 
dark depths, and murmur again snatches of ocean song, 
and talk of those we love ; and we peer among the 



276 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

tars, which seem neighborly, and as if they were the 
homes of friends. And as the great ocean-swells come 
rocking under us, and carry us up and down along the 
valleys and the hills of water, they seem like deep 
pulsations of the great heart of nature, heaving us 
forward toward the goal of life, and to the gates of 
heaven ! 

We watch the ships as they come upon the hori- 
zon, and sweep toward us, hke false friends, with the 
sun glittering on their sails ; and then shift their course, 
and bear away — with their bright sails, turned to 
spots of shadow. We watch the long winged birds 
skimming the waves hour after hour, — like pleasant 
thoughts — now dashing before our bows, and then 
sweeping behind, until they are lost in the hollows of 
the water. 

Again life hes open, as it did once before ; but the 
regrets, disappointments, and fruitless resolves do not 
come to trouble me now. It is the future, which 
has become as level as the sea ; and she is beside 
me, — the sharer in that future— to look out with me, 
upon the joyous sparkle of water, and to count with 
me, the dazzling ripples, that lie between us and the 
shore. A thousand pleasant plans come up, and ?n*e 
abandoned, hke the waves we leave behind us ; a 
thousand other joyous plans, dawn upon our fancy, 
like the waves that glitter before us. We talk of 



Evening. 277 

Laurence and his bride, whom wc are to meet ; we talk 
of her mother, who is even now watching the winds 
that waft her child over the ocean ; we talk of the 
kindly old man, her god-father, who gave her a father's 
blessing ; we talk low, and in the twihght hours, of 
Isabel — who sleeps. 

At length, as the sun goes down upon a fair night, 
over the western waters which we have passed, we see 
before us, the low blue hne of the shores of Cornwall 
and Devon. In the night, shadowy ships glide past us 
with gleaming lanterns ; and in the morning, we see 
the yellow chfFs of the Isle of Wight ; and standing out 
from the land, is the dingy sail of our pilot. London 
with its fog, roar, and crowds, has not the same charms 
that it once had ; that roar and crowd is good to make 
a man forget his griefs — forget himself, and stupify 
him with amazement. We are in no need of such for- 
getfulness. 

We roll along the banks of the sylvan river that 
glides by Hampton Court ; and we toil up Richmond 
Hill, to look together upon that scene of water, and 
meadow, — of leafy copses, and ghstening villas, of 
brown cottages, and clustered hamlets, — of solitaiy 
oaks, and loitering herds — all spread like a veil of 
beauty, upon the bosom of the Thames. But we can- 
not linger here, nor even under the glorious old boles 
of Windsor Forest ; but we hurry on to that sweet 



2V8 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

county of Devon, made gi-een with its white skeins of 
water. 

Again we loiter under the oaks, where we have loi- 
tered before ; and the sleek deer gaze on us with their 
liquid ej'-es, as they gazed before. The squirrels sport 
among the boughs r.s fearless as ever ; and some wan- 
dering puss pricks her long ears at our steps, and 
bounds off along the hedge rows to her burrow. Again 
I see Carry in her velvet riding-cap, with the white 
plume ; and I meet her as I met her before, under the 
princely trees that skirt the northern avenue. I recal 
the evening when I sauntered out at the park gates, 
and gained a blessing from the j^orter's wife, and 

dreamed that strange dream ; now, the dream 

seems more real, than my life. — " God bless you !" — 
said the woman again. • 

— " Aye, old lady, God has blessed me !" — and I 
fling her a guinea, not as a gift, but as a debt. 

The bland farmer lives yet ; he scarce knows me, 
until I tell him of my bout around his oat-field, at the 
tail of his long stilted plough. I find the old pew in 
the parish church. Other holly sprigs are hung 
now; and I do not doze, for Carry is beside me. 
The curate drawls the service; but it is pleasant to 
listen; and I make the responses with an emphasis, 
that tells more I fear, for my joy, than for my reli- 
gion. The old groom at the mansion in the Park, 



Evening. 279 

has not forgotten the hard-riding of other days ; and 
tells long stories (to which I love to listen) of the old 
visit of mistress Carry, when she followed the hounds 
with the best of the English lasses. 

— " Yer honor may well be proud ; for not a pret- 
tier face, or a kinder heart has been in Devon, since 
mistress Carry left us !" 

But pleasant as are the old woods, full of memories, 
and pleasant as are the twilight evenings upon the 
terrace — we must pass over to the mountains of 
Switzerland. There we are to meet Laurence. 

Carry has never seen the magnificence of the Juras ; 
and as we journey over the hills between Dole, and 
the border line, looking upon the rolling heights 
shrouded with pine trees, and down thousands of feet, 
at the very road side, upon the cottage roofs, and 
emerald valleys, where the dun herds are feeding 
quietly, she is lost in admiration. At length we 
come to that point above tlie little town of Gex, from 
Avhich you see spread out before you, the meadows 
that skirt Geneva, the placid surface of Lake Lemau, 
and the rough, shaggy mountains of Savoy ; — and far 
behind them, breaking the horizon with snowy cap, 
and vnth. dark pinnacles — Mont Blanc, and the 
Needles of Chamouni. 

I point out to her in the valley below, the Uttlo 
town of Ferney, where stands the deserted chateau of 



280 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

Voltaire ; and beyond, upon the shores of the lake, 
the old home of de Stael ; and across, with its white 
walls reflected upon the bosom of the water, the house 
where Byi'on wrote the prisoner of Chilloii. Among 
the grouping roofs of Geneva, we trace the dark 
cathedral, and the tall hotels shining on the edge of 
the lake. And I tell of the time, when I tramped 
down through yonder valley, with my future all 
visionary, and broken, and drank the splendour of the 
scene, only as a quick relief to the monotony of my 
soHtary hfe. 

"And now, Carry, with youi* hand locked in 

mine, and your heart mine — yonder lake sleeping in 
the sun, and the snowy mountains with their rosy hue 
seem like the smile of nature, bidding us be glad !" 

Laurence is at Geneva ; he welcomes Cai-ry, as he 
would welcome a sister. He is a noble fellow, and 
tells me much of his sweet Itahan wife ; and presents 

me to the smihng, blushing Enrica ! She has 

learned EngUsh now ; she has found, she says, a 
better teacher, than ever I was. Yet she welcomes 
me warmly, as a sister might ; and we talk of those 
old evenings by the blazing fire, and of the one-eyed 
Maestro, as children long separated, might talk of 
their school tasks, and of their teachers. She cannot 
tell me enough of her praises of Laurence, and of his 



Evening. 281 

noble heart. — " You were good," — she says, r-" but 
Laurence is better." 

CaiTy admires her soft brown hair, and her deep 
hquid eye, and wonders how I could ever have left 
Rome? 

Do you indeed wonder — Carry ? 

And together we go down into Savoy, to that mar- 
vellous valley, which Hes under the shoulder of Mont 
Blanc ; and we wander over the Mer de Glace ^ and 
pick Alpine roses from the edge of the frowning 
glacier. We toil at night-fall up to the monastery of 
the Great St. Bernard, where the new forming ice 
crackles in the narrow foot-way, and the cold moon 
glistens over wastes of snow, and upon the windows of 
the dark Hospice. Again, we are among the granite 
heights, whose ledges are filled with ice, upon the 
Grirasel. The pond is dark and cold ; the paths are 
shppery ; — the great glacier of the Aar sends down icy 
breezes, and the echoes ring from rock to rock, as if 
the ice-God answered. And yet we neither suffer, nor 
fear. 

In the sweet valley of Meyringen, we part from 
Laurence: he goes northward, by Grindenwald, and 
Thun, — thence to journey westward, and to make for 
the Roman girl, a home beyond the ocean. Enrica 
bids me go on to Rome : she knows that Carry will 
love its soft warm air, its ruins, its pictui'es and temples. 



282 Reveuiii's of a Bachelor. 

better tlian these cold valleys of Switzerland. And she 
gives me kind messages for her mother, and for Cesare ; 
and should we be in Rome at the Easter season, she 
bids us remember her, when we listen to the Miserere, 
and when we see the great Chiesa on fire, and when we 

saunter upon the Pincian hill ; and remember, that 

it is her home. 

"We follow them with our eyes, as they go up the 
steep height over which falls the white foam of the clat- 
tering Reichenbach ; and they wave their hands toward 
us, and disappear upon the little plateau which stretches 
toward the crystal Rosenlaui, and the tall, still, Engel- 
Horner. 

May the mountain angels guard them ! 

As we journey on toward that wonderful pass of 
Splugen, I recal by the way, upon the heights, and in 
tl e valleys, the spots where I lingered years before ; — • 
here, I plucked a flower, there, I drank from that cold, 
yellow glacier water ; and here, upon some rock over- 
looking a stretch of broken mountains, hoary with their 
eternal frosts, I sat musing upon that very Future, which 
is with me now. But never, even when the ice-genii 
were most prodigal of their fancies to the wanderer, did 
I look for more joy, or a better angel. 

Afterward, when all our trembhng upon the Alpine 
paths has gone by, wo are roUing along under the 
chestnuts and lindens that skirt the banks of Como. 



Evening. 283 

We recal that sweet story of Manzoiii, and I point out, 
as well as I may, tlie loitering place of the hravi^ ami 
the track of poor Don Abbondio. We follow in the 
path of the discomfited Renzi, to where the dainty spire, 
and pinnacles of the Duomo of Milan, glisten against 
the \iolet sky. 

Carry longs to see Venice ; its water-streets, and 
palaces have long floated in her visions. In the bust- 
ling activity of om* own country, and in the quiet fields 
of England, that strange, half-deserted capital, lying in 
the Adriatic, has taken the strongest hold upon her 
fancy. 

So we leave Padua, and Verona behind us, and find 
ourselves upon a soft spring noon, upon the end of 
the iron road Avhich stretches across the lagoon, 
toward Venice. With the hissing of steam in the 
ear, it is hard to think of the wonderful city, we are 
approachnig. But as we escape from the cai-riage, 
and set our feet down into one of those strano-e, 
hearee-like, ancient boats, with its sharp iron prow, 
and listen to the melodious rolhng tongue of the 
Venetian gondolier : — as we see rising over the watery 
plain before us, all glittering in the sun, tall, square 
towei-s with pyramidal tops, and clustered domes, and 
minarets ; and sparkhng roofs lifting from marble 
walls — all so like the old paintings ; — and as we glide 
nearer and nearer to the floating wonder, under the 



284 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

silent working oar, of our now silent gondolier ; — 
as we ride up swiftly under the deep, broad shadows 
of palaces, and see plainly the play of the sea-water 
in the crevices of the masonry, — and turn into 
narrow rivers shaded darkly by overhanging walls, 
hearing no sound, but of voices, or the swaying of the 
water against the houses, — we feel the presence of the 
place. And the mystic fingers of the Past, grappling 
our spirits, lead thera away — willing and rejoicing 
captives, through the long vista of the ages, that are 
gone. 

Carry is in a trance ; — rapt by the witchery of the 
scene, into dream. This is her Venice ; nor have all 
the visions that played upon her fancy, been equal to 
the enchanting presence of this hour of approach. 

Afterward, it become: a hving thing, — stealing 
upon the affections, and upon the imagination by a 
tliousand coy advances. "VVe wander under the warm 
Italian sunhght to the steps fj'om which rolled the 
white head of poor Marino Faliero. The gentle 
Carry can now thrust her ungloved hand, into the 
terrible Lion's mouth. We enter the salon of the 
fearful Ten ; and peep through the half opened door, 
into the cabinet of the more fearful Three. We go 
through the deep dungeons of Carmagnola and of 
Carrara ; and we instruct the willing gondolier to 
push his dark boat under the Bridge of Sighs ; and 



Evening. 285 

with Rogers' poem in our hand, glide up to the prison 
door, and read of — 



-that fearful closet at the foot 



Lurking for prey, which, when a victim came, 
Grew less and less, contracting to a span 
An iron door, urged onward by a screw. 
Forcing out life ! 



I sail, listening to nothing but the dip of the gondo- 
her's oar, or to her gentle words, fast under the 
palace door, which closed that fearful morning, on the 
guilt and shame of Bianca Capello. Or, with souls lit 
up by the scene, into a buoyancy that can scarce 
distinguish between what is real, and what is mei'ely 
written, — we chase the anxious step of the forsaken 
Corinna ; or seek among the veteran palaces the 
casement of the old Brabantio, — the chamber of 
Desdemona, — the house of Jessica, and trace among 
the strange Jew money-changers, who yet haunt the 
Rialto, the hkeness of the bearded Shylock. We 
wander into stately churches, brushing over grass, or 
tell-tale flowers that grow in the court, and find them 
damp and cheerless ; the license rises murkily, and 
rests in a thick cloud over the altars, and over the 
paintings ; the music, if so be that the organ notes are 
swelling mider the roof, is mournfully plaintive. 



286 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

Of an afternoon we sail over to the Lido, to gladden 
our eyes with a sight of land and green things, and we 
pass none upon the way, save silent oarsmen, with 
barges piled high with the j)roduce of their gardens, — 
pushing their way down toward the floating city. And 
upon the narrow island, we find Jewish graves, half 
covered by drifted sand ; and from among them, 
watch the sunset glimmering over a desolate level of 
water. As we ghde back, lights lift over the Lagoon, 
and double along the Guideca, and the Grand Canal. 
The little neighbor isles will have their company of 
lights dancing in the water ; and from among them, 
will rise up against the mellow evening sky of Italy, 
gaunt, unlighted houses. 

After the nightfall, which brings no harmful dew 
with it, I stroll, with her hand within my arm, — as 
once upon the sea, and in the English Park, and in 
the home-land — over that great square which lies 
before the palace of St. Marks. The white moon is 
riding in the middle heaven, hke a globe of silver ; the 
gondohers stride over the echoing stones ; and their 
long black shadows, stretching over the pavement, 
or shaking upon the moving water, seem like great 
funereal plumes, waving over the bier of Venice. 

Carrying thence whole treasures of thought and 
fancy, to feed upon in the after yeai-s, we wander 
to Rome. 



Evening. 287 

I find the old one-eyed inaestro, and am met with 
cordial welcome by the mother of the pretty Enrica. 
The Count has gone to the marches of Ancona. Lame 
Pietro still shuffles around the boards at the Lepre, 
and the flower sellers at the corner, bind me a more 
brilliant bouquet than ever, for a new beauty at Kome. 
As we ramble under the broken arches of the great 
aqueduct stretching toward Frascati, I tell Carry, the 
story of m}'- trip in the Appeniues ; and we search for 
the pretty Carlotta. But she is married, they tell us, 
to a Neapolitan guardsman. In the spring twilight, 
we wander upon those heights which lie between 
Frascati and Albano ; and looking westward, see that 
glorious view of the Campagna, which can never be 
forgotten. But beyond the Campagna, and beyond 
the huge hulk of St. Peter's, heaving into the sky 
from the middle waste, we see, or fancy we see, a 
ghmpse of the sea which stretches out and on to the 
land we love, better than Rome. And in fancy, we 
build up that home, which shall belong to us, on the 
return; — a home, that has, slumbered long in the 
future ; and which, now that the futm-e has come, lie» 
fairly before me. 



288 Reveries of a Bachelor 



Home. 

Years seem to have passed. They have me' 
Hfe into ripeness. The start, and change, and hot 
ambition of youth, seem to have gone by. A calm, 
and joyful quietude has succeeded. That future which 
still lies before me, seems Hke a roseate twilight, sink- 
ing into a peaceful, and silent night. 

My home is a cottage, near that where Isabel once 
hved. The same valley is around me ; the same brook 
rustles, and loiters under the gnarled roots of the over- 
hanging trees. The cottage is no mock cottage, but a 
Bubstantial, wide spreading cottage, with clustering 
gables, and ample shade ; — such a cottage as they build 
upon the slopes of Devon. Vines clamber over it, ^nd 
the stones show mossy through the interlacing clunbers. 
There are low porches, with cozy arm chairs ; and 
generous oriels, fragrant with mignionette, and the blue 
blossoming violets. 

The chimney stacks rise high, and show clear 
against the heavy pine trees, that ward off the blasts 
of winter. The dovecote, is a habited dovecote, and 
the purple-necked pigeons swoop around the roofs, 
in great companies. The hawthorn is budding into 
its June fragrance along all the lines of fence; and 



E V E N I N- G . 289 

the patlis are trim, and clean. Tlie shrubs, — our neg- 
lected azahas and rhododendrons chiefest among them, 
— stand in picturesque groups upon the close shaven 
lawn. 

The gateway in the thicket below, is between two 
mossy old posts of stone ; and there is a tall hemlock 
flanked by a sturdy pine, for sentinel. Within the cot- 
tage, the library is wainscotted with native oak ; and 
my trusty gun hangs upon a branching pair of antlei-s. 
My rod and nets are disposed above the generous book- 
shelves ; and a stout eagle, once a tenant of the native 
woods, sits perched over the central alcove. An old 
ftxshioned mantel is above the brown stone jams of 
the country fire-place ; and along it are distributed 
records of travel; — httle bronze temples from Eome, 
the pietro duro of Florence, the porcelain busts of 
Dresden, the rich iron of Berlin, and a cup fashioned 
from a stag's horn, from the Black Forest by the 
Rhine. 

Massive chairs stand here and there, in tempting at- 
titude ; strewed over an oaken table in the middle, are 
the uncut papers, and volumes of the day ; and upon a 
lion's skin stretched before the hearth, is lying another 
Tray. 

But this is not all. There are children in the cot- 
tage. There is Jamie — we think him handsome — for 
he has the dark hair of his mother, — and the same 



290 Reveries of a. Bachelor. 

black eye, with its Icng, heavy fringe. There is Carry 
— ^little Cany I must call her now — with a face full of 
glee, and rosy with health ; then there is a little rogue 
some two yeai-s old, whom we call Paul — a very had 
boy, — as we tell him. 

The mother is as beautiful as ever, and far more 
dear to me ; for gratitude has been adding, year by 
year, to love. There have been times when a hai-sh 
word of mine, uttered in the fatigues of business, has 
touched her ; and I have seen that soft eye fill with 
tears; and I have upbraided myself for causing her 
one pang. But such things she does not remember ; 
or remembers, only to cover with her gentle forgive- 
ness. 

Laurence and Enrica are Uving near us. And the 
old gentleman, who was Carry's god-father, sits with 
me, on sunny days upon the porch, and takes Httle 
Paul upon his knee, and wonders if two such daughtei-s 
as Enrica and Carry are to be found in the v/orld. 
At twilight, we ride over to see Laurence ; Jamie 
mounts with the coachman ; little Carry puts on her 
wide-rimmed Leghorn for the evening visit; and the 
old gentleman's plea for Paul, cannot be denied. The 
mother too is with us ; and old Tray comes whisk- 
ing along, now frolicking before the horses' heads, 
and then bounding oflf after the flight of some belated 
bird. 



Evening. 291 

Away from that cottage lioaic, I seem away from 
life, Witliin it, tliat broad, and shadowy future; 
which lay before me in boyhood and in youth, is 
garnered, — hke a fine mist, gathered into drops of 
crystal. 

And when away — those long letters, dating from 
the cottage home, are what tie me to life. That 
cherished wife, far dearer to me now, than when she 
wrote that first letter, which seemed a dark veil be- 
tween me and the future — writes me now, as tenderly 
as then. She narrates, in her deHcate way, all the 
incidents of the home hfe ; she tells me of their rides, 
and of their games, and of the new planted trees ; — of 
all their sunny days, and of their frolics on the lawn ; 
she tells me how Jamie is studying, and of little 
Carry's beauty, growing every day, and of rogueish 
Paul — so hke his father ! And she sends me a kiss 
fi'om each of them ; and bids me such adieu, and such 
* God's blessing,' that it seems as if an angel gniarded 
me. 

But this is not all ; for Jamie has written a post- 
script : 

" Dear Father," ho says, " mother wishes me to 



tell you how I am studying. What would you think, 
father, to have me talk in French to you, when you 
come back ? I wish you would come back though ; 



292 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

the hawtliorns are coming out, and the apricot tinder 
my window is all full of blossoms. If you should bring 
me a present, as you almost always do, — I would like a 
fishing rod. 

" Your affectionate son, 

"Jamie." 

And little Cany has her fine, rambling characters 
running into a second postscript. 

" Why don't you come, papa ; you stay too long ; I 
have ridden the pony twice ; once he most threw me 
off. This is all from Carry." 

And Paul has taken the pen too, and in his extra- 
ordinary effort to make a big P, has made a very big 
blot. And Jamie writes under it — " This is Paul's 
work, Pa ; but he says it's a love blot, only he lovea 
you ten hundred times more." 

And after your return, Jamie will insist that you 
should go with him to the brook, and sit down with 
him upon a tuft of the brake, to fling off a hne into the 
eddies, though only the nibbling roach are sporting 
below. You have instructed the workmen to spare the 
clumps of bank-willows, that the wood-duck may have 
a covert in winter, and that the Bob-o-Lincolns may 
have a quiet nesting place in the spring. 

Sometimes your vnfe, — too kind to deny such favor 



Eve XING. 293 

—will stroll with you along the meadow banks, and 
you pick meadow daisies in memory of the old time. 
Little Carry weaves them into rude chaplets, to dress 
the forehead of Paul, and they dance along the green- 
swai-d, and switch oflf the daffodils, and blow away the 
dandelion seeds, to see if their wishes are to come 
true. Jamie holds a butter cup under Carry's chin, 
to find if she loves gold ; and Paul, the rogue, teases 
them, by sticking a thistle into sister's cui-ls. 

The pony has hard work to do under Carry's swift 
riding — but he is fed by her own hand, with the cold 
breakfast rolls. The nuts are gathered in time, and 
stored for long winter evenings, when the fire is bui-n- 
ing bright and cheerily — a true, hickory blaze, — 
which sends its waving gleams over eager, smiling 
faces, and over well-stored book shelves, and portraits 
of dear, lost ones. While from time to time, that 
wife, who is the soul of the scene, will break upon 
the children's prattle, with the silver melody of her 
voice, running softly and sweetly through the coup- 
lets of Crabbe's stories, or the witchery of the Flod- 
den Tale. 

Then the boys will guess conundrums, and play at fox 
and geese; and Tray, cherished in his age, and old 
Milo petted in his dotage, lie side by side, upon the 
lion's skin, before the blazing hearth. Little Tom- 
tit the goldfinch sits sleeping on his perch, or cocks 



294 Reveries of a Bachelor. 

his eye at a sudden crackling of the fire, for a familiar 
squint upon our ftimily group. 

But there is no future without its strao'crlino: clouds. 
Even now a shadow is trailing along the landscape. 

It is a soft and mild day of summer. The leaves 
are at their fullest. A southern breeze has been 
blowing up the valley all the morning, and the light, 
smoky haze hangs in the distant mountain gaps, hke 
a veil on beauty. Jamie has been bu?y with his les- 
sons, and afterward playing with Milo upon the lawn. 
Little Carry has come in from a long ride — her face 
blooming, and her eyes all smiles, and joy. The 
mother has busied herself with those flowers she loves 
so well. Little Paul, they say, has been playing in 
the meadow, and old Tray has gone with him. 

But at dinner time, Paul has not come back. 

*' Paul ought not to ramble off so far," I say. 

The mother says nothing ; but there is a look of 
anxiety upon her face, that disturbs me. Jamie 
wonders where Paul can be, and he saves for him, 
whatever he knows Paul will like — a heaping plate- 
full. But the dinner hour passes, and Paul does not 
come. Old Tray lies in the sun-shine by the porch. 

Now the mother is indeed anxious. And I, though 
I conceal this from her, find my fears strangely 
active. Something like instinct guides me to the 



Evening. 295 

meadow : I wander down the brook-side calling — Paul ! 
— Paul ! But there is no answer. 

All the afternoon we search, and the neighbors 
search; but it is a fruitless toil. There is no joy 
that evening : the meal passes in silence ; only httle 
Carry with teai-s in her eyes, asks, — if Paul will soon 
come back ? All the night we search and call : — the 
mother even braving the night air, and running here 
aild there, until the morning finds us sad, and de- 
spahing. 

That day — the next — cleared up the mystery ; but 
cleared it up w^ith darkness. Poor little Paul ! — he has 
sunk under the murderous eddies of the brook ! His 
boyish prattle, his rosy smiles, his artless talk, are lost 
to us forever ! 

I will not tell how nor when we found him : nor will 
I tell of our desolate home, and of her grief— the fii'st 
crushing grief of her life. 

The cottage is still. The servants glide noiseless, 
as if they might startle the poor little sleeper. The 
house seems cold — very cold. Yet it is summer 
weather ; and the south breeze plays softly along the 
meadow, and softly over the murderous eddies of the 
brook. 

Then comes the hush of burial. The kind mourners 
\re thare: ^it is easy for them to mourn! The 



296 Reveries 3f a Bachelor. 

good clergyman prays by the bier : ' Oh, Thou, 

■who did'st take upon thyself human woe, and drank 
deep of every pang in life, let thy spirit come and heal 
this grief, and guide toward that Better Land, where 
justice and love shall reign, and hearts laden with an- 
guish, shall rest forevermore !' 

Weeks roll on ; and a smile of resignation hghts up 
the saddened features of the mother. Those dark 
mourning robes speak to the heart deeper, and more 
tenderly, than ever the bridal costume. She lightens 
the weight of your grief by her sweet words of resig- 
nation : — " Paul," she says, " God has taken our 
boy !" 

Other weeks roll on. Joys are still left — great and 
ripe joys. The cottage smihng in the autumn sunshine 
is there : the birds are in the forest boughs : Jamie and 
little Carry are there ; and she, who is more than them 
all, is cheerful, and content. Heaven has taught us 
that the brightest future has its clouds ; — that this life 
is a motley of lights and shadows. And as we look 
upon the world around is, and upon the thousand 
forms of human misery, there is a gladness in our deep 
thanksgiving. 

A year goes b}^ ; but it leaves no added shadow on 
our hearth-stone. The vines clamber, and flourish : 
the oaks are winning age and grandeur : little Carry 



Evening 29*7 

is blooming into the pretty coyness of girlhood ; and 
Jamie, with his dai'k hair, and flashing eyes, is the pride 
of his mother. 

There is no alloy to pleasure, but the remembrance 
of poor Httle Paul. And even that, chastened as it 
is with years, is rather a grateful memorial that our 
life is not all here, than a grief that weighs upon our 
hearts. 

Sometimes, leaving little Carry and Jamie to their 
play, we wander at twilight to the willow tree, beneath 
which our drowned boy sleeps calmly, for the Great 
Awaking. It is a Sunday, in the week-day of our life, 
to linger by the httle grave, — to hang flowers upon the 
head-stone, and to breathe a prayer that our little Paul 
may sleep well, in the arms of Him who loveth chil- 
dren! 

And her heart, and my heart, knit together by sor- 
row, as they had been knit by joy — a silver thread min- 
gled with the gold — follow the dead one to the Land 
that is before us ; until at last we come to reckon the 
boy, as living in the new home, which when this is old, 
shall be om-s also. And my spirit, speaking to his 
spirit, in the evening watches, seems to say joyfully — so 
joyfully that the tears half choke the utterance — " Paul, 
my boy, we will be there /" 

And the mother, turning her face to mine, so that I 
see the moisture in her eye, and catch its heavenly look, 



298 Reveries op a Bachelor. 

whispers softly — so softly, that an angel might have 
said it j--^" Yes, dear, we will be there !" 



The night had now come, and my day under the 
oaks was ended. But a crimson belt yet lingered over 
the horizon, though the stars were out. 

A line of shaggy mist lay along the surface of the 
brook. I took my gun from beside the tree, and my 
shot-pouch from its limb, and whistling for Carlo — as 
if it had been Tray — I strolled over the bridge, and 
down the lane, to the old house under the elms. 

I dreamed pleasant dreams that night ; — = ^Tor I 

di-eamed that my Reverie was real. 



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